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Hybrid court resilience and the selection of cases

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 September 2020

Michail Vagias
Michail Vagias*
Affiliation:
The Hague University of Applied Sciences, Johanna Westerdijkplein 75, 2521EN The Hague
*
Email: M.Vagias@hhs.nl
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Abstract

The article explores the extent to which the resilience of hybrid courts is impacted by their selection of cases. It proceeds from the observation that the cases pursued by hybrid institutions are the result of choice under constraints. The article examines the identity of the case-choosers and the relevance of such choices for the internal and external resilience of hybrid courts. The research reveals the need to distinguish between case selection by the drafters and case selection by court authorities in the context of each institution and the tensions between these two sets of practices. These tensions are examined in the context of four hybrid institutions. The Office of the Prosecutor at the Special Court for Sierra Leone enjoyed a relatively broad measure of discretion in terms of case selection. However, the Extraordinary African Chambers, the Cambodia Chambers and the Kosovo Specialist Chambers seem to have been established with specific accused in mind. The article argues that resilience considerations are probably relevant in instances of case selection by the court officers, albeit they are context sensitive and may vary over time. Case selection prior to the establishment of a court and/or by political stakeholders, on the other hand, is ill-suited for analysis using internal resilience and arguably fall outside its scope of application. For these cases, the research argues that the discussion requires re-orientation with emphasis shifted to concepts such as contribution to national reconciliation as opposed to resistance to external pressure.

Keywords

case-selectioncriminal justicehybrid courtsprosecutorial discretionresilience
Type
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Information
Leiden Journal of International Law , Volume 33 , Issue 4 , December 2020 , pp. 1029 - 1046
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

1 P. McAuliffe, ‘Hybrid Tribunals at Ten – How International Criminal Justice’s Golden Child Became an Orphan’, (2011) 7 Journal of International Law and International Relations 1, at 1.

2 Indicatively, P. Kastner, ‘Hybrid Tribunals: Institutional experiments and the potential for creativity within international criminal law’, in P. Kastner (ed.), International Criminal Law in Context (2018), 221–39; H. Hobbs, ‘Towards a Principled Justification for the Mixed Composition of Hybrid International Criminal Tribunals’, (2017) 30 LJIL 177; L. A. Dickinson, ‘The Promise of Hybrid Courts’, (2003) 97 AJIL 295; A. Fichtelberg, Hybrid Tribunals: A Comparative Examination (2015); S. Williams, Hybrid and Internationalised Criminal Tribunals: Selected Jurisdictional Issues (2012).

3 See in detail Section 2.

4 Ibid.

5 Wiebelhaus-Brahm, in this issue, doi:10.1017/S0922156520000400.

6 For an insightful distinction between ‘talk’ and ‘planning’ as regards tribunal legacy see S. Kendall and S. M. H. Nouwen, ‘Speaking of Legacy: Towards an Ethos of Modesty at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda’, (2016) 110 AJIL 212, at 213.

7 E. Wiebelhaus-Brahm, supra note 5.

8 K. Brown, Resilience, Development and Global Change (2016), 6.

9 E. Wiebelhaus-Brahm, supra note 5.

10 C. Jakob, ‘Evaluating the United Nations’ Agenda for Atrocity Prevention: Prospects for the International Regulation of Internal Security’, (2015) 3 Politics and Governance 16, at 17–18; according to the ICISS 2001 report, the Responsibility to Protect is premised on three main pillars: responsibility to prevent, to react and to rebuild. The ‘responsibility to protect’ from atrocity crimes is vested in each sovereign state, according to the 2005 World Summit Outcome incorporated in UN Doc. A/RES/60/1 (2005), paras. 138–9.

11 D. Meyersen, ‘Deconstructing Risk and Developing Resilience: The Role of Inhibitory Factors in Genocide Prevention’, in S. P. Rosenberg et al. (eds.), Reconstructing Atrocity Prevention (2016), at 282–3; M. Midiarsky, The Killing Trap: Genocide in the Twentieth Century (2005), 335.

12 R. Lemarchand, ‘Coping Strategies and Genocide Prevention’, in B. Ingelaere et al. (eds.), Genocide, Risk and Resilience (2013), 36–7.

13 J. Kammerhofer, ‘The Resilience of the Restrictive Rules on Self-Defence’, in M. Weller et al. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of the Use of Force in International Law (2015), 627–9.

14 Ibid., at 627–8.

15 International Law Commission, Draft articles on the protection of persons in the event of disasters, with commentaries, UN Doc. A/71/10 (2016), Art. 6, para. 9 of the Commentary.

16 The Commission often refers to the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015. This document refers in turn to the definition of resilience adopted by the UNISDR as follows: ‘the capacity of a system, community or society potentially exposed to hazards to adapt, by resisting or changing in order to reach and maintain an acceptable level of functioning and structure’. Hyogo Framework for Action 2005–2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters, World Conference on Disaster Reduction, Final Report, UN Doc. A/CONF.206/6 (2005) and Corr.1, at 4, fn. 7.

17 N. Henry, ‘Witness to Rape: The Limits and Potential of International War Crimes Trials for Victims of Wartime Sexual Violence’, (2009) 3 International Journal of Transitional Justice 114, at 118.

18 M. Wessells, ‘Psychosocial Issues in Reintegrating Child Soldiers’, (2004) 37 Cornell International Law Journal 513, at 515.

19 Hybrid tribunals have been defined as ‘… post-conflict accountability mechanisms, whose institutional make up is adapted to the particularities of each context typically through a blend of domestic and international features’: Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rule-of-Law Tools for Post-Conflict States: Maximizing the legacy of hybrid courts, UN Doc. HR/PUB/08/2 (2008), at 1.

20 Wiebelhaus-Brahm, supra note 5.

21 Responsibility to Protect: State responsibility and prevention: Report of the Secretary-General, UN Doc. A/67/929-S/2013/399 (2013).

22 Ibid., at 2, para. 7.

23 Wiebelhaus-Brahm, supra note 5.

24 Ibid.

25 K. Sikkink, ‘The Future of International Criminal Justice: Recent Empirical Studies on the Impact of Justice Mechanisms on Human Rights and Conflict’, in M. Cherif Bassiouni (ed.), Globalization and its Impact on the Future of Human Rights and International Criminal Justice (2015), 135–47. For a valuable recent empirical study see G. Dancy and E. Wiebelhaus-Brahm, ‘The impact of national prosecutions during intrastate conflict’, (2017) 55 Journal of Peace Research 47, at 53–6.

26 Wiebelhaus-Brahm, supra note 5.

27 O. Martin-Ortega and J. Herman, ‘Hybrid Tribunals: Interaction and Resistance in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Cambodia’, in O. P. Richmond and A. Mitchell (eds.), Hybrid Forms of Peace: From Everyday Agency to Post-Liberalism (2012), 73, at 84.

28 SCSL Statute, Art. 1; see 2002 Agreement between the United Nations and the Government of Sierra Leone on the Establishment of a Special Court for Sierra Leone, 2178 UNTS 138. Further, The Prosecutor v. Kallon et al., Decision on Constitutionality and Lack of Jurisdiction, Case No. SCSL-2004-16, App. Ch., 13 March 2004, para. 40.

29 UN Doc. S/RES/1315 (2000), preambular paras. 7, 9, 10. The resolution contains the UNSC authorization to the Secretary General to negotiate with the Government of Sierra Leone an agreement for the establishment of the Special Court; The Prosecutor v. Norman et al., Transcript, Case No. SCSL 04-14-T, T. Ch., 3 June 2004, at 4–5.

30 Annex to the letter dated 9 August 2000 from the Permanent Representative of Sierra Leone to the United Nations addressed to the President of the Security Council, UN Doc. S/2000/786 (2000), at 2.

31 Ibid.

32 UN Doc. S/RES/1315 (2000), operative paras. 4, 8(b).

33 Annex to the letter dated 9 August 2000, supra note 30, at 2.

34 UN Doc. S/RES/1315 (2000), operative para. 3; Report of the Secretary General, supra note 21, at 2, para. 7. Further, W. A. Schabas, The UN International Criminal Tribunals: The Former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone (2006), 36.

35 SCSL Statute, supra note 28, Art. 1(1).

36 C. Jalloh and A. Morgan, ‘International Criminal Justice Processes in Rwanda and Sierra Leone: Lessons for Liberia’, in C. Jalloh and O. Elias (eds.), Shielding Humanity, Essays in Honour of Judge Abdul G. Koroma (2015), at 486.

37 The Prosecutor v. Norman et al., Transcript, Case No. SCSL 04-14-T, T. Ch., 3 June 2004, at 12–13.

38 SCSL Statute, supra note 28, Art. 1(2); further, Jalloh and Morgan, supra note 36, at 486.

39 K. Ainley, ‘Evaluating the Success of Transitional Justice in Sierra Leone and Beyond’, in K. Ainley et al. (eds.), Evaluating Transitional Justice: Accountability and Peacebuilding in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone (2015), 241, at 247.

40 C. Mahony, ‘The Justice Pivot: U.S. International Criminal Law Influence from Outside the Rome Statute’, (2015) 46 Georgetown Journal of International Law 1071, at 1119.

41 S. Kendall, Contested Jurisdictions: Legitimacy and Governance at the Special Court for Sierra Leone (2009), 14; contra, Jalloh and Morgan, supra note 36, at 486.

42 Supra note 29 and text.

43 S. J. Rapp, ‘The Challenge of Choice in the Investigation and Prosecution of International Crimes in Post-Conflict Sierra Leone’, in C. C. Jalloh (ed.), The Sierra Leone Special Court and Its Legacy: The Impact for Africa and International Criminal Law (2013), at 25.

44 D. M. Crane, ‘The Take Down: Case Studies regarding Lawfare in International Criminal Justice: The West African Experience’, (2010) 43 Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law 201, at 204; Rapp, ibid., at 32–3.

45 Rapp, ibid., at 25.

46 For a discussion on the classification of the Habré court as a hybrid tribunal see S. Williams, ‘The Extraordinary African Chambers in the Senegalese Courts: An African Solution to an African Problem?’, (2013) 11 Journal of International Criminal Justice 1139, at 1144–5.

47 R. Adjovi, ‘Une Saga Judiciaire Autour d’un (Ex-) Chef d’Etat Africain, Hissene Habré’, (2011–2012) 19 African Yearbook of International Law 375; G. Naldi and K. Magliveras, ‘The Ever Difficult Symbiosis of Africa with the International Criminal Court’, (2013) 66 Revue Héllenique de Droit International 59, at 84–9; V. Spiga, ‘Non-retroactivity of Criminal Law: A new chapter in the Hissène Habré Saga’, (2011) 9 Journal of International Criminal Justice 5, at 7–11.

48 2012 Agreement between the Government of the Republic of Senegal and the African Union on the Establishment of the Extraordinary African Chambers within the Courts of Senegal.

49 Ibid., Art. 1.

50 Statute of the Extraordinary African Chambers within the Courts of Senegal created to prosecute international crimes committed in Chad between 7 June 1982 and 1 December 1990.

51 Ibid., Art. 1(1).

52 Ibid., Art. 3.

53 The first relevant decision was African Union, Decision on the Hissène Habré Case and the African Union, Doc. Assembly/AU/Dec.127(VII) (2006). The Statute referred probably to African Union Assembly, Decision on the Hissene Habré Case, Doc. Assembly/AU/12(XVIII) (2012); this was not the only decision on the matter. See, indicatively, earlier decisions on the matter by the Assembly of the AU, Assembly/AU/Dec. 340(XVI), Sixteenth Ordinary Session, 30–31 January 2011 and Assembly/AU/Dec. 371(XVII), Seventeenth Ordinary Session, 30 June–1 July 2011 both dealing with the modalities of Habré’s prosecution before an internationalized court system.

54 Hissene Habre v. Republic of Senegal, Judgment, ECW/CCJ/JUD/06/10, 18 November 2010, the Court of Justice of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS).

55 Questions relating to the Obligation to Prosecute or Extradite (Belgium v. Senegal), Merits, Judgment of 20 July 2012, [2012] ICJ Rep. 2012.

56 See www.chambresafricaines.org/pdf/OrdonnanceRenvoi_CAE_13022015.pdf.

57 R. Brody, ‘Bringing a dictator to justice; the case of Hissène Habré’, (2015) 13 Journal of International Criminal Justice 209, at 214 (three suspects at large and two awaiting trial in Chad; Chad refused to transfer them to Dakar).

58 K. Carlson, ‘Trying Hissène Habré “On Behalf of Africa”: Remaking Hybrid International Criminal Justice at the Chambres Extraordinaires Africaines’, in J. Nicholson and C. M. Bailliet (eds.), Strengthening the Validity of International Criminal Tribunals (2018), at 2.

59 Williams, supra note 46, at 1147; S. A. E. Høgestøl, ‘The Habré Judgment at the Extraordinary African Chambers: A Singular Victory in the Fight Against Impunity’, (2016) 34 Nordic Journal of Human Rights 147, at 155.

60 2001 Law on the Establishment of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia for the Prosecution of Crimes Committed during the Period of Democratic Kampuchea, which was promulgated in Reach Kram No. NS/RKM/0801/12, as amended on 27 October 2004, available at ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl-nat.nsf/0/7E21E293F1125BC5C125708B0040BA53 (hereinafter the ECCC law).

61 2003 Agreement between the United Nations and the Royal Government of Cambodia concerning the prosecution under Cambodian law of crimes committed during the period of Democratic Kampuchea, 2329 UNTS 117 (entered into force 29 April 2005).

62 ECCC Law, supra note 60, Art. 1.

63 Report of the Group of Experts for Cambodia established pursuant to General Assembly Resolution 52/135, UN Doc. A/53/850, S/1999/231 (1999), Ann.

64 Ibid., para. 109.

65 Ibid., para. 106.

66 Ibid., para. 110.

67 D. Scheffer, ‘The Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia’, in M. Cherif Bassiouni (ed.), International Criminal Law (2008), at 240.

68 Prosecutor v. Kaing Guek Eav alias ‘Duch’, Appeal Judgement, Case No. 001/18-07-2007-ECCC/SC, Supreme Court Chamber, 3 February 2012, para. 56.

69 Ibid., paras. 57–9; this finding was confirmed subsequently in Prosecutor v. Nuon Chea and Khieu Samphan, Case 002/01 Judgement, Case No. 002/19-09-2007/ECCC/TC, T. Ch., 7 August 2014, para. 14.

70 J. Herman, ‘A Necessary Compromise or Compromised Justice? The Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia’, in H. F. Carey and S. M. Mitchell (eds.), Trials and Tribulations of International Prosecution (2013), at 217.

71 Ibid., at 218.

72 See www.eccc.gov.kh/en/articles/co-investigating-judges-issue-two-separate-closing-orders-case-against-meas-muth.

73 N. B. Jørgensen, The Elgar Companion to the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia (2018), 15–26.

74 The statement of the national prosecutor is available at www.eccc.gov.kh/en/articles/statement-office-national-co-prosecutors-case-004; the statement of the international co-prosecutor can be found at is available at www.eccc.gov.kh/en/articles/statement-international-co-prosecutor-case-004.

75 See www.eccc.gov.kh/en/articles/co-investigating-judges-issue-two-separate-closing-orders-case-against-ao-case-no-004207.

76 See www.eccc.gov.kh/en/articles/statement-international-co-prosecutor-regarding-eccc-caseload.

77 The Co-Investigating Judges, Combined Decision on the Impact of the Budgetary Situation on Cases 003, 004 and 004/2 and Related Submissions by the Defence for Yim Tith, Case No. 004/2/07-09-2009-ECCC-OCIJ, Office of the Co-Investigating Judges, 11 August 2017, paras. 22–3 et seq, available at eccc.gov.kh/sites/default/files/documents/courtdoc/2017-08-11%2022:02/D349_6_EN.PDF.

78 Jørgensen, supra note 73, at 359.

79 C. P. R. Romano, ‘International Courts and Tribunals’, in B. D. Jones et al. (eds.), Cooperating for Peace and Security: Evolving Institutions and Arrangements in a Context of Changing U.S. Security Policy (2010), 291, at 305.

80 M. M. deGuzman and W. A. Schabas, ‘Initiation of Investigation and Selection of Cases’, in G. Sluiter et al. (eds.), International Criminal Procedure: Rules and Principles (2013), at 2–3.

81 See www.scp-ks.org/en/documents/constitutional-amendment-article-162.

82 Law No. 05/L-053, On Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office, 3 August 2015, available at www.scp-ks.org/en/documents/law-specialist-chambers-and-specialist-prosecutors-office-3-aug-2015.

83 Ibid., Arts. 8 and 9.

84 Ibid., Art. 9(2).

85 Ibid., Art. 9(1).

86 Ibid., Art. 10.

87 C. del Ponte, Madame Prosecutor, Confrontations with Humanity’s Worst Criminals and the Culture of Impunity (2008).

88 M. Holvoet, ‘The Continuing Relevance of the Hybrid or Internationalized Justice Model: The Example of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers’, (2016) 28 Criminal Law Forum 35, at 43–4.

89 Parliamentary Assembly, Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, Inhuman Treatment of People and Illicit Trafficking in Human organs in Kosovo, AS/Jur (2010) 46 (2010), available at www.assembly.coe.int/CommitteeDocs/2010/ajdoc462010prov.pdf. The investigation was initiated by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe with Document 11574/10 April 2008.

90 M. Spernbauer, ‘EULEX Kosovo: The Difficult Deployment and Challenging Implementation of the Most Comprehensive Civilian EU Operation to Date’, (2010) 11 German Law Journal 792.

91 Statement dated 29 July 2014 of the Chief Prosecutor of the Special Investigative Task Force, at 20 (hereinafter SITF Prosecutor’s Statement); the Statement is Annex II to the Report of the Secretary-General on the United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo, UN Doc. S/2014/558 (2014).

92 Ibid., at 20–1.

93 Ibid., at 21.

94 Ibid.

95 Letter by the President of Kosovo Ms. Atifete Jahjaga to Baroness Ashton, 14 April 2014, at 2–3.

96 Ibid., ‘[a] specialist court within the Kosovo court system and a specialist prosecutor’s office would be used for any trial and appellate proceedings arising from the SITF investigations’.

97 Supra note 81, Art. 162(1).

98 Law No. 05/L-053, supra note 82, Art. 1(2).

99 Ibid., Art. 6.

100 Report, supra note 89, para. 66.

101 Ibid., paras. 68–73.

102 Ibid., paras. 78–82.

103 Ibid., para. 113; Krasniqi, who at the time was not in custody, was subsequently arrested and convicted in 2016 for war crimes and sentenced to nine years imprisonment: see www.rferl.org/a/kosovo-court-convicts-former-guerrilla-war-crimes/27909293.html.

104 See further, www.scp-ks.org/en/specialist-prosecutors-office/role-spo.

105 Law No. 05/L-053, supra note 82, Art. 24(2).

106 In July 2019, one of the key figures identified in the Marty Report – Ramush Haradinaj – appeared as a suspect before the Kosovo Chambers but refused to answer any of the questions put to him by the Prosecutors: ‘Kosovo PM Haradinaj resigns over war crimes summons’, BBC, 19 July 2019, available at www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-49047355.

107 deGuzman and Schabas, supra note 80.

108 Shielding, effectively, potential suspects from its jurisdiction; T. Hamilton and M. Ramsden, ‘The Politicisation of Hybrid Courts: Observations from the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia’, (2014) 14 International Criminal Law Review 115, at 123–4.

109 Wiebelhaus-Brahm, supra note 5.

110 I. Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law (2008), 604.

111 The cases were supposed to be selected by a committee of four prosecutors; 1945 Agreement by the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Government of the United States of America, the Provisional Government of the French Republic and the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics for the Prosecution and Punishment of the Major War Criminals of the European Axis, Arts. 14(c) and 15. However, national intelligence agencies actively removed from the Nuremberg docket high-ranking Nazi officials; M. Salter, Nazi War Crimes, US Intelligence and Selective Prosecutions at Nuremberg: Controversies Regarding the Role of the Office of Strategic Services (2007), 129–30. Salter shows how Waffen-SS General Karl Wolff, a top Nazi official heavily involved in the commission of a series of war crimes, escaped all prosecution due to his involvement in Operation Sunrise and the intervention of US intelligence officer Allen Dulles.

112 See www.recom.link/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Download-full-statement-here.pdf.

113 W. A. Schabas, ‘Prosecutorial Discretion v. Judicial Activism at the International Criminal Court’, (2008) 6 Journal of International Criminal Justice 731, at 738–41 on ‘gravity’.

114 Among many others from recent scholarship, S. M. Torrens, ‘Allegations of Political Interference, Bias and Corruption at the ECCC’, in S. Meisenberg and I. Stegmiller (eds.), The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia: Assessing their Contribution to International Criminal Law (2016), at 45–75; T. Hamilton and M. Ramsden, ‘The Politicisation of Hybrid Courts: Observations from the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia’, (2014) 14 International Criminal Law Review 115, at 120–2; E. Nielsen, ‘Hybrid International Criminal Tribunals: Political Interference and Judicial Independence’, (2010) 15 UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs 289, at 306–7; C. P. R. Romano et al., International Criminal Courts: Sierra Leone, East Timor, Kosovo, and Cambodia (2004), 127–9, 184.

115 Marguš v. Croatia, Judgment of 27 May 2014, App. No. 4455/10, Grand Chamber, European Court of Human Rights, para. 139.

116 For example, Høgestøl argues that one of the advantages of the Habré court is that it was able to assert jurisdiction for crimes committed beyond the ICC’s temporal jurisdiction. Høgestøl, supra note 59, at 156.

117 La Cantuta v. Perú, Merits, Reparations and Costs, Judgment of 29 November 2006, Inter-American Court of Human Rights, para. 160 (jus cogens duty to prosecute); G. S. Goodwin-Gill, ‘Crime in International Law: Obligations Erga Omnes and the Duty to Prosecute’, in G. S. Goodwin-Gill and S. Talmon (eds.), The Reality of International Law, Essays in Honour of Ian Brownlie (1999), at 220 (procedural obligation to prosecute derivative from the jus cogens nature of the offence); contra, Jurisdictional Immunities of the State (Germany v. Italy: Greece intervening), Judgment of 3 February 2012, [2012] ICJ Rep. 2012, paras. 91, 93.

118 Jorgic v. Germany, Judgment of 12 July 2007, App. No. 74613/01, European Court of Human Rights, paras. 69–71.

119 Among many others, Coëme and others v. Belgium, Judgment of 22 June 2000, App. No. 32492/96, European Court of Human Rights, paras. 98–102.