Establishment of an international court to judge war crimes
REPORT
Doc. 6587
26 March 1992
Rapporteur: Mrs HALLER, Switzerland, Socialist
Problems and solutions
There is no permanent international court to try war crimes, crimes against peace and crimes against humanity, including the crime of genocide.
Initiatives aimed at setting up an international criminal court have so far failed, particularly because they have made the codification of these types of crimes a precondition.
The Assembly does not consider it necessary to wait for such a codification as these crimes have already been defined in several international texts.
It recommends that member states of the Council of Europe take the initiative of proposing the establishment of a criminal court in the framework of the United Nations.
I. RECOMMENDATION [link to adopted text]
1. The Assembly deplores the fact that, despite international détente, conflicts still persist, and is aware of the international community's outrage at the fact that war criminals who committed crimes during recent conflicts remain unpunished.
2. It recalls that, although Second World War criminals were tried by the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals, there is still no permanent international court to try war criminals. Under present international law there is no international court with jurisdiction over war crimes, or over crimes against peace and crimes against humanity, including the crime of genocide, which are just as unacceptable to the conscience of humanity.
3. These three types of crime have been defined in several generally accepted international texts, including the London Charter of 8 August 1945, the United Nations Convention of 9 December 1948 on the prevention and punishment of the crime of genocide, the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and several other United Nations conventions.
4. Various initiatives aimed at setting up an international criminal court have so far failed, particularly because they made the prior codification of these types of crime a precondition.
5. The Assembly does not consider it necessary to draw up a code prior to the establishment of an international court for which the recent developments of international relations seems favourable today.
6. It refers to the resolution adopted by the Inter-Parliamentary Union at its 86th session in October 1991 (Santiago, Chile) urging the States Parties to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to set up the international criminal court provided for in the convention.
7. The Assembly urges the International Law Commission, which, under the auspices of the United Nations has been meeting since 1990, to come to a decision within the next 12 months.
8. The Assembly recommends establishing an international criminal court by means of a multilateral convention to be drafted by an international diplomatic conference convened under the auspices of the United Nations.
9. The Assembly, therefore, recommends that the Committee of Ministers call upon member states to act through the United Nations to secure the convening of an international diplomatic conference to prepare a convention on the setting up of a criminal court, and support such action.
II. EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM
by Mrs Haller
C O N T E N T S
2. EXISTING COURTS
2.1. The jurisdiction of domestic courts
3. INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW
3.1. International criminal law as codified by international treaties
4. PROPOSALS TO IMPROVE THE PRESENT SITUATION
4.1. The emergence of a new right: the right of interference
5. POSSIBLE ATTRIBUTES OF AN INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
5.2. Scope and nature of its jurisdiction
Appendix: Resolution of the Inter-Parliamentary Union
The origin of this report lies in a motion tabled by
Mr Espersen and others on 6 February 1991 (Doc. 6387), recommending that the Committee of Ministers should facilitate the possibility of establishing a tribunal to judge war crimes, having regard to historical and present-day events and with reference to paragraph 11 of Resolution 954 (1991) on the Gulf crisis.
The Gulf crisis is denounced here and the idea of such an international court has been taken up in order to try crimes committed in connection with it. Meanwhile Europe has unfortunately experienced further events which might warrant recourse to an international court.
While, however, the three criteria adopted for the purpose of trying former Nazi dignitaries seem to apply in the present case - crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity - an international criminal court with responsibility for judging criminals is still lacking. What is needed here is a political judgment by the international community, but the legal basis for it remains to be determined. The fact is that such matters cannot be brought before any domestic court or any of the existing permanent international courts (whether of worldwide or regional scope).
2. EXISTING COURTS
2.1. The jurisdiction of domestic courts
The great majority of states have acknowledged the existence of certain basic rules of international society. Certain serious international offences can at the present time be punished nationally by virtue of the principle of the domestic punishment of international crimes. However, such crimes and criminals must be considered "minor" or "ordinary" under the provisions of the Nuremberg Charter and must concern acts geographically located in a particular occupied state and hence subject to a system of national punishment implemented by the state itself (eg Klaus Barbie in France).
States thus exercise restricted jurisdiction. They act "by order" of international law. Under the terms of the conventions to which they are parties, states are required to take all the necessary steps to prevent and to punish punishable offences. However, irrespective of its duty to punish, the competent state may omit or neglect to enact the necessary laws or may be less diligent in cases where it is not directly involved. That being so, the principle of international punishment would remedy these shortcomings.
2.2. Existing permanent international courts
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is a permanent world court having general jurisdiction and forming part of the United Nations as one of its organs. Within the framework of its contentious jurisdiction it has been entrusted with the task of settling legal disputes between states by means of judgments, and not of determining the criminal responsibility of an individual or
group of individuals under international criminal law. Furthermore, while its judgments have a binding and definitive character, it nevertheless rrmains true that its jurisdiction is optional and that its action thus rests on the consent of the parties to the dispute.
At the regional level, mention may be made, on the one hand, of the European Commission and Court and the Inter-American Commission and Court of Human Rights (which operate in almost the same ways) and, on the other, the Court of Justice of the European Communities (CJEC). The European Court of Human Rights is the judicial organ which, in conjunction with the European Commission of Human Rights and the Committee of Ministers, ensures respect for the rights recognised and guaranteed by the European Human Rights Convention of 4 November 1950, ratified by virtually all the member states of the Council of Europe. Cases can be brought before the Court by states or by the Commission, to which matters may be referred by any state party, non-governmental organisation, individual or group of individuals. If a case is brought before the Court, then any violation of the rights recognised in the Convention gives rise to a final and enforceable judgment. Its jurisdiction is in principle optional, but all states, except Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland which have only recently become members and have not yet ratified the Convention, have accepted its compulsory character.
Lastly, in the special context of the European Communities, an international organisation serving the purposes of integration, mention may be made of the role of the Court of Justice of the European Communities, a supranational judicial organ acting as a kind of federal Supreme Court that guarantees Community law and ensures it is respected by member states and their nationals. Its jurisdiction is compulsory and its decisions enforceable. It is open not only to the Commission of the Communities but also to states and individuals. However, it judges disputes concerning the application and interpretation of the treaties establishing the three Communities and the scope of its jurisdiction is accordingly confined to Community affairs alone.
None of the aforementioned courts can, then, try international criminal cases and it was in order to fill this gap in the law that, at the end of the first world war, various draft texts and statutes were drawn up regarding the establishment of an international criminal court. The Treaty of Versailles, in its Article 227, established a special tribunal to try Kaiser Wilhelm. It never came into being, but the idea was launched of punishing offences that might be perpetrated by public officials of the state.
From 1943 onwards the idea took shape more clearly, being translated into reality following the Allied victory in 1945, when two international tribunals were set up at Nuremberg and Tokyo, thereby affirming that those recognised by law as being responsible for an international offence could be persons representing the state and acting on its behalf. This real turning-point in the development of international criminal justice, despite its importance, was however to have certain limitations owing to the non-permanent and non-preventive character of those tribunals. Would they still have a dissuasive effect?
In view of the impact and the considerable influence of the judgments delivered by these two tribunals, it is worth calling them to mind as they remain central to any further study regarding the establishment of an international criminal court.
2.3. The Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals
The judicial bodies set up in the wake of the second world war delivered judgment on criminal acts perpetrated during the hostilities and even before them. All the crimes within their jurisdiction related to the preparation, initiation and perpetration of criminal acts. Their statutes were very wide-ranging, thus allowing each of the tribunals considerable freedom to establish rules of procedure, for which they laid down only general rules, thereby confirming the changing character of public international law and, in particular, of international criminal law which was established during the hearings. Major principles were laid down which immediately became customary law and which remain the foundations of any projected code of international offences and international criminal court:
* Recognition of the principle of the direct criminal responsibility of individuals under international law. The theory of "complicity by order" was also adopted: the responsibility of the major war criminals cannot be waived on the grounds that they did not physically perpetrate criminal acts or that some of them claim to have acted in compliance with the orders of their superiors.
* Recognition of crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity as crimes under international law. They are expressly provided for and defined in their constituent parts in a treaty text (cf Article 6 of the London Charter of 8 August 1945, see below section 3.2).
* Renunciation of the doctrine of acts of state: these are acts whereby the state enjoys discretionary power and of which administrative or ordinary courts refuse to take cognisance owing to their political implications.
* Precedence to the rules of international criminal over municipal law. However, whereas criminal law is acquiring an international dimension at the normative level, this is not true at the institutional level, owing to the absence of a permanent court and to the fact that the organs of the state generally retain a monopoly over criminal sanctions. The Tribunal, reaffirming the principle of the punishment of war crimes, distinguished between two categories of war criminals:
- major war criminals (whose offences have no particular geographical location, political leaders) who must be punished internationally, and
- "ordinary" war criminals (having committed their crimes in a particular occupied state) and who must be punished by the state itself.
* Principle of international co-operation in the detection, arrest, extradition and punishment of persons guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. This principle, adumbrated at the time, was also taken up and spelled out subsequently (cf Resolution 3074 (XXVIII) of the United Nations General Assembly of 3 December 1973).
These principles, recognised by the international community as a whole, have not so far made it possible, despite the various draft texts drawn up under the auspices of the United Nations, to establish an international criminal court. The fact of having to judge the conduct of governments comes up against the eternal problem of restricting national sovereignty. Yet could not the view be taken rather that proceedings against an individual will on the contrary prevent the case from being considered as a matter of a dispute between states?
The work of the United Nations, and particularly the studies of the International Law Commission (ILC) concerning the establishment of an international criminal court or the codification of international crimes, has been considerable but has never come to anything. At the present time having regard to developments in international relations and international law these projects seem more feasible. Nevertheless, many obstacles remain and the position of states in regard to the establishment of such a court and of a code of international crimes will depend on the form to be taken by such conventions.
3. INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW
3.1. International criminal law as codified by international treaties
The aim is to find a way out of the customary uncertainty of international law with the object of achieving the legal precision of criminal law. This law governing international offences must first be determined not only by the rules of customary law but also, and above all, by treaty law.
As early as 1948, the United Nations General Assembly, in adopting on 9 December 1948 the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, declared itself in favour of such codification and even advocated the setting up of a permanent international court since its Article VI refers to an "international penal tribunal". Subsequently, the 1973 Convention on Apartheid took up the same idea in its Article V, leading in 1980 to a draft Statute for such a court.
Regarding the definition in treaties of international crimes in the strict sense, mention may also be made of the following: the London Agreement of 8 August 1945; Resolutions 3 and 5 of 13 February and 11 December 1946 of the United Nations General Assembly confirming the "principles of international law recognised by the Charter of the Nürnberg Tribunal and by the judgment of the Tribunal"; the four Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 confirming the definition of war crimes; the Convention of 26 November 1968 declaring that no statutory limitation may apply to those crimes; Resolution 3074 (XXVIII) of 3 December 1973 of the United Nations General Assembly on the principles of international co-operation in the detection, arrest, extradition and punishment of persons guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Furthermore, "grave breaches" in the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and the Geneva Protocol of 1977 have been extensively defined and classed as war crimes (cf. Article 85 of the First Protocol of 1977).
- Crimes against peace are constituted by the following acts: "planning, preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances, or participation in a common plan or conspiracy for the accomplishment of any of the foregoing" (Article 6.a of the 1945 Charter of the International Military Tribunal).
- War crimes are defined generally as "violations of the laws or customs of war". Such violations include "murder, ill-treatment or deportation to slave labour or for any other purpose of civilian population of or in occupied territory, murder or ill-treatment of prisoners of war or persons on the seas, killing of hostages, plunder of public or private property, wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages, or devastation not justified by military necessity." (Article 6.b).
- Crimes against humanity are "murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war, or persecutions on political, racial or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of the domestic law of the country where perpetrated" (Article 6.c).
This Convention, concluded under the auspices of the Council of Europe on 25 January 1974, has to date been ratified by only one state: the Netherlands, and hence has never come into force. The Convention reproduces and supplements existing conventions, like the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 9 December 1948 and the four Geneva Conventions of 1949, but unlike the United Nations Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity of 26 November 1968, which in its Article I clearly defines the crimes to which no statutory limitation shall apply, the European Convention does not provide a detailed list of such crimes and states that statutory limitation shall not apply to "any comparable violations of the laws of war", any violation "of a particularly grave character" and "any other violation of a rule or custom of international law which may hereafter be established". This lack of precision no doubt accounts for the refusal of states to ratify such a text.
4. PROPOSALS TO IMPROVE THE PRESENT SITUATION
4.1. The emergence of a new right: the right of interference
Faced with certain emergency situations or situations entailing distress or injustice, the international community is increasingly tending to assert its "right of assistance" to civilian populations threatened by the cruelty of states. Indeed this right of interference on humanitarian grounds was described, during the Gulf conflict and the massacres of the Kurdish populations, as a "duty of interference". Moreover, this duty of assistance to peoples in danger, transcending the sovereignty of states, was recently enshrined in Resolution 688 adopted by the United Nations Security Council on 5 April 1991, demanding that Iraq allow "immediate access by international humanitarian organisations to all those in need of assistance in all parts of Iraq". Such a position on the part of the Security Council and of the international community seems to run counter to Article 2 of the United Nations Charter as regards non-interference in a state's domestic affairs.
A new phase in the development of international law is thus being adumbrated which tempts to reconcile in law a supreme political imperative (the full independence of the nation-state) with a moral requirement (the desire to save thousands of human beings threatened with extermination).
Since the period of the major Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, but especially since the collapse of the totalitarian systems in Eastern Europe, there has been a considerable change in international society. Following the disappearance of the deep-seated antagonism which for decades stood in the way of any practical change in general international law, and particularly criminal law, it is striking to note how quickly the question of an international criminal court leapt to prominence during the Gulf conflict. Although the existence of an international criminal law was affirmed as long ago as 1945, it was an inactive law, mainly for lack of a competent court to apply it. It seems necessary at present to go beyond mere political judgments as to the behaviour of certain leaders and to make it possible to establish a legal basis for condemning the action of major criminals.
The rule of law, however, is inconceivable, both nationally and intrnationally, unless there exists a judicial authority worthy of the name. The fact that the idea of a permanent international criminal court has come up again is consonant with current developments in international law. Daring as the proposal might have seemed some years ago, it seems feasible today and, even if, initially, it does not attain "perfection", the main thing, as Mr Donnedieu de Vabres put it, "is to establish a permanent court and to break out of the deadlock even at the price of imperfection, for the imperfection of human justice is inevitable and is better than a complete absence of justice".
The establishment of a permanent court responsible for applying international criminal law will have two results. First, the same crime will no longer be able to be the subject of proceedings either under international law or under domestic law and, secondly, the tendency will be towards the guarantee of a more general interpretation of international law and towards greater impartiality in the proceedings. The court will thus be a more authoritative expression of world public opinion as to the criminal character of certain offences.
As for the legal objections raised to ad hoc courts in an attempt to deny their jurisdiction, namely the principle of the non-retroactivity of criminal law and the rule "Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege" (no crime or penalty without law making it so), these will then be invalidated.
At a very early juncture, the General Assembly instructed the International Law Commission to consider the possibilities of establishing such a judicial body. In 1951 and 1953 the ILC submitted two draft statutes embodying a noble design and a great ideal. This court, responsible for trying "crimes generally recognised by international law" - a dubious and imprecise concept - was assigned wider jurisdiction than is being envisaged today. In addition, an explicit act of will on the part of states was needed to recognise its jurisdiction and the possibility remained for states of referring cases to domestic courts or to an ad hoc court. Despite the extent of the discretionary power granted to states, there were many political misgivings and legal objections, the concept of sovereignty being essential to the establishment of a "supra-national" criminal court.
In the light of this fact, fresh thought must be given to the idea of such a court and its role and powers must be more clearly defined. If certain strict limits were laid down beyond which the court could no longer take any action, with in exchange a smaller degree of discretionary power granted to states, they would not be so strongly opposed to it.
Accordingly, on the initiative of Mr Hans Dietrich Genscher, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the Twelve, meeting on 15 April 1991 in Luxembourg, proposed that the President of Iraq be tried, on the one hand, for the "attempted genocide" of the Kurdish population under the terms of the United Nations Convention of
9 December 1948, and on the other hand, for war crimes following the invasion and annexation of Kuwait.
It is important to point out here that, given the approach of this report, a particular political event does not warrant the establishment of an international criminal court. Such a court should also be set up to act as a deterrent by virtue of the moral standards it upholds.
The the question is indeed whether or not the statute of an international criminal court should be drawn up in combination with the codification of international criminal law.
In the work of the International Law Commission since the 1950s, the question of the establishment of an international criminal court has always been linked to the projected code of crimes against peace and the security of humanity, which in 1951 and 1954 resulted in two draft versions. The code in question consisted in an enumeration of offences under international law whose interpretation and framework were too broad and too perfunctory to be acceptable. Since 1982 the International Law Commission had resumed its study of the projected code of crimes against peace and the security of humanity, and in this connection it has, since 1986 and on its own initiative, been concerning itself with the projected establishment of an international criminal court. The draft refers solely to the most serious international crimes, but the tendency to include in it such "new" crimes as colonialism, apartheid or attacks on the human environment (concepts of "ecocide" and "biocide") is in danger once again of meeting with resolute opposition from states.
Accordingly, unlike the ILC, which considers that the drawing up of a code of international offences is required for the establishment of a court responsible for applying it, we believe that such a court may come into being irrespective of such a code.
It does indeed seem doubtful whether there can be a rapid outcome to the study of this projected code.
Conversely, a convention instituting a court responsible for judging crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity seems altogether feasible, these three types of crime having been defined in a treaty (cf 3.2.).
4.4.The Council of Europe Convention
We shall be considering here whether or not it is necessary to relaunch this convention, possibly with certain amendments being proposed which would enable the European states to ratify it, with in particular more precise definitions.
This would not, however, make it possible to solve the problem of the lack of a court with jurisdiction to judge such acts. Above all, it seems preferable, even if the possibility is not to be ruled out of such acts being committed in the context of Europe, to envisage a solution to this problem in terms of the international community as a whole.
5. POSSIBLE ATTRIBUTES OF AN INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT
It emerges from the two draft statutes for an international criminal court that the court must be endowed with five basic qualities: stability, permanence, independence, effectiveness and worldwide jurisdiction. From this point of view, there are a large number of political and legal obstacles to be overcome. Numerous hypotheses have been put forward as to how it should be established, what its powers would be, who would have access to it and whether or not it would be possible to enter reservations, etc.
Depoliticisation and legal determination will be needed to bring this court into being, and particular procedures will be required. Those described below suggest themselves as being best adapted to the present situation. It will be remembered that the United Nations draft proposals concerned a court with extensive powers and related to crimes whose legal definition remains imprecise and subject to controversy. Here, on the contrary, the concern will be to describe ways and means of establishing a court responsible not only for judging war crimes, which seems to be too limited, but also for dealing with the three major types of crime unanimously recognised since 1945, namely crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the crime of genocide which has very close affinities with them. Under Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 9 December 1948 "genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
a. killing members of the group;
b. causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
c. deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life
calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
d. imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
e. forcibly transferring children of the group to another group".
These types of crime seem to form an indivisible whole and have been sufficiently recognised by the international community for there to be no fear of states being opposed to the establishment of a court whose scope would be limited in this way.
The way in which this essential question is resolved will determine the influence and effectiveness of the court and its relations with the United Nations. Various hypotheses have been developed at length by the International Law Commission in its draft texts, of which we shall be considering the main ones.
We shall start by dismissing the hyothesis of establishing a new United Nations organ by way of amending the Charter with the object of setting up a new international court or adding a criminal section to the International Court of Justice, as such a modification of the Charter is unacceptable to many states.
Nor shall we retain the idea of such a court being established by a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, as it is doubtful whether the legal powers vested in the General Assembly under Article 22 of the Charter are sufficient to establish such a court by a simple resolution.
That Article reads as follows: "The General Assembly may establish such subsidiary organs as it deems necessary for the performance of its functions".
We shall thus give preference to the last solution, namely the establishment of the court by means of a multilateral convention drawn up either by the General Assembly or by an international diplomatic conference, our preference being for the second alternative. Whatever the case may be, it should be concluded under the auspices of the United Nations so that it can aim to have the desired universal character. The drawing up by a conference of interested states of a convention open for accession and relating to the statute of the international criminal court is a more rapid and more practicable solution and would in no way prejudice the progress of the convention on the adoption of the code of crimes against peace and the security of humanity.
Since the main question remains that of the agreement of states to the establishment of such a court, the best way of ascertaining and assessing the extent of such agreement is to check whether an appreciable number of states would be willing to take part in such a conference. The attitude of plenipotentiaries in a diplomatic conference provides a more precise indication as to the opinion of governments than would be obtained by a General Assembly vote in support of a resolution as such a vote would commit states to a lesser extent. A further advantage of a diplomatic conference lies in the fact that it would entrust the preparation of the statute to
particularly qualified delegates of states interested in the establishment of the court, and would thus avoid the drawbacks resulting from the participation in the drafting of the statute of states that might be opposed to the establishment of the court.
5.2. Scope and nature of its jurisdiction
Mention has been made of the possibility of giving the court jurisdiction to try not only individuals but also legal entitites. It still seems premature to formulate so new a principle as the criminal responsibility of societies and we shall, for this reason, confine its jurisdiction to individuals.
Furthermore, as was suggested earlier, we think it desirable for the jurisdiction of the future court to be exclusive. Unlike most other existing international judicial institutions, which have optional jurisdiction, we think that, in view of the fact that the Court's action will be limited to the three major types of crime, its jurisdiction should be compulsory. The possibility of entering reservations appears in this case to be inopportune insofar as, under Article 20, paragraph 3, of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties of 1969, reservations can be made only if they do not run counter to the subject-matter and purpose of the treaty. However, the subject-matter and purpose of a treaty relating to the statute of a court whose jurisdiction would be restricted in this way, would immediately be diverted by the formulation of reservations. Each state would then refrain from exercising its jurisdiction for these specific crimes, which in our opinion would not really impair their sovereignty.
Clearly, this solution can be envisaged only if the court is established in order to judge only these three types of crime and irrespective of the code of international crimes or, conversely, in the event of that code being concerned exclusively with such crimes. If, however, the code is extended to include "international crimes" as a whole, the court's jurisdiction would be compulsory only for the most serious crimes defined in the code. Whatever the case, and in all eventualities, there is nothing to prevent the court's jurisdiction from being extended subsequently to other crimes.
It is to our mind essential that the right to refer matters to the court be granted to all states, whether or not concerned by the case, on the model of the European Convention on Human Rights, to all international organisations and to all non-governmental organisations. Fairly strict admissibility conditions should be laid down, otherwise the number of cases could multiply to such an extent that the court's moral authority is undermined. In addition, it should be compulsory for those states to render assistance to the court.
5.3. Application of its judgments
As to implementation of the court's decisions, we endorse a proposal made in the 1950s concerning the establishment of an international detention centre. In order to meet the criteria of effectiveness and independence, it is necessary for the court to have not only its own criminal code and its own criminal judges, but also its own means of punishment. The detention centre could be located in the vicinity of the court itself for reasons of convenience. The question remains of where the court should be located.
5.4. Safeguards for defendants and for convicted persons
The Council of Europe has adopted a set of rules which ensure a high level of guarantee for the rights of defendants and convicted persons: the European Convention on Human Rights and its Protocols, including the abolition of the death penalty, the European Convention for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, to mention only the most important. Care should be taken to ensure the same guarantees for defendants and convicted persons subject to the jurisdiction of the international court.
Reporting Committee: Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights
Budgetary implications for the Assembly: None
Reference: Doc. 6388 and Reference No. 1719 of 11 March 1991
Draft recommendation: unanimously adopted by the committee on 20 January 1992
Members of the Committee: Lord Kirkhill (Chairman), Mr Altug (Vice-Chairman), Mrs Ekman (Vice-Chairwoman), MM. Akçali, Amaral, Arnalds, Bindig, Brincat, Collette, Colombo, Columberg, De Decker, Espersen, Esteves, Fodor, Fuhrmann, Ghalanos, Gundersen, Stig Gustafsson, Hyland, Jansson, Karcsay, Mrs Lentz-Cornette, MM. Meimarakis, Negri, Nunez (Alternate: Mr Barrionuevo), Oehry, Petitpierre (Alternate: Mrs Haller), Pontillon, Posluch, Rodotà, Rokofyllos, Ruiz (Alternate: Mr Cuatrecasas), von Schmude, Schwimmer, Sir Dudley Smith, Mrs Soutendijk-van Appeldoorn, Mrs Staels-Dompas, MM. Stoffelen, Vogel, Ward, Worms.
N.B. The names of the members who took part in the vote are underlined
Secretaries of the committee: Mr Plate and Ms Coin