Vote(s)

¿Acaso quedan hoy políticos así? 

«Pues entonces, si afirmáis que la mujer no influye para nada en la vida política del hombre, estáis -fijaos bien- afirmando su personalidad, afirmando la resistencia a acatarlos. ¿Y es en nombre de esa personalidad, que con vuestra repulsa reconocéis y declaráis, por lo que cerráis las puertas a la mujer en materia electoral? ¿Es que tenéis derecho a hacer eso? No; tenéis el derecho que os ha dado la ley, la ley que hicisteis vosotros, pero no tenéis el derecho natural fundamental, que se basa en el respeto a todo ser humano, y lo que hacéis es detentar un poder; dejad que la mujer se manifieste y veréis como ese poder no podéis seguir detentándolo»

http://sociedad.elpais.com/sociedad/2006/10/01/actualidad/1159653602_850215.html?id_externo_rsoc=FB_CM

The Crime of Genocide under International Criminal Law

The London Agreements, in the aftermath of the WWII, served to establish an International Military Tribunal —which would be also known as the Nuremberg Tribunal— to prosecute and punish the European Axis major war criminals for the crimes committed during the war period. In its annex was included the proceeding to follow and the jurisdiction of the tribunal —which was named Charter of the International Military Tribunal.

Concretely, art. 6 included the type of crimes in which the Tribunal had jurisdiction. It’s worth mentioning that the crimes were three: (a) crimes against peace; (b) war crimes; and (c) crimes against humanity. These concern the planning, preparation, and waging a war of aggression. According to WERLE[1] the difference is that the criminalization of war crimes serves to protect the rights of foreign citizens, crimes against humanity include offenses against one’s own citizens. Thus, the domestic arena is also included in international law. The rationale is based on the idea that certain serious attacks on individuals gain international dimension when they are systematically aimed at a specific civilian population.

Although it was not specifically called genocide either in the Charter or the judgment of the Nuremberg Tribunal, genocide was actually included in the provisions under the umbrella of crimes against humanity. However, what really draws my attention, is that it was then that for the very first time in history, individuals were held responsible for the acts committed. It was back then, in 1945, where international law made a step further and decided to indict and prosecute war criminals. This was a valiant, though a no-risk leap, that allowed the international community to prosecute those who intended to change the world order at the expense of the interests of the international community as a whole.

Unfortunately, not all the efforts were focused on the same direction. After the initial momentum, during the Cold War, International Criminal Law suffered a standstill and no significant progress was done. It was in 1995 where, after 40 years, the UN established the ICTR and the ICTY to make further development on that field.

The concept of genocide it is not trivial, even more when the use of the word has been spread and universally accepted. It was officially first established as such in the 1948 Genocide Convention. Even today there are doubts whether the Convention only grants jurisdiction over acts of genocide to the territorial state or an international court that was not stablished by that time or, conversely, pursuant to art. 1 of the Convention, it provides state parties grounds to prosecute genocide on the basis of universal jurisdiction[2]. The duty to prosecute is a question that has been raised so many times in this contexts that seems that there is not still a clear answer to that yet.

In order to give some thoughtful ideas on the crime of genocide, it is interesting to point out the actions covered by the Genocide Convention. Before doing so, it’s important to bear in mind, as WERLE stated, that the definition of Genocide was copied from the Genocide Convention and literally transferred to both the ICTY, ICTR and ICC Statutes[3]. This is why in this sense I will refer to them indistinctively.

All the aforementioned provisions include as punishable: those acts consisting of (a) killing members of the group; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) deliberately inflict conditions of life to bring the group to destruction; (d) impose measures to prevent births; (e) transfer children to other groups with intent to destroy a national, ethnical, racial or religious group.

From the reading of the provision one can infer that to stand before a genocide, it is necessary that the perpetrator wants the destruction of the group. It is not necessary to actually achieve the purpose or even partially harm the group; the willingness to commit the act is sufficient. Then, the second requisite is to do one of the specified actions. It cannot be others than the actions included in the article 6 par. from letter (a) to (e). And last but not least, it should be national, ethnical or racial groups.

Linking this last point with the conclusion, I would like to mention two things that may be seen as obvious but sometimes forgotten: the first one is that international criminal law, as international law itself, appears as a sheer politicized tool that serves big countries interests. The second thing regarding genocide is that there are many things left aside because this law is certainly constrained by politics. For instance, both political groups and suppressing cultural norms of a group don’t constitute genocide and hence were excluded from the Convention as a result of certain nation states objecting[4]. 

Therefore, no one can state that a cultural genocide has been committed, simply because the international tools don’t include it as such.

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[1] WERLE, G.: Principles of International Criminal Law, OUP, 2014, p. 7.

[2] See both Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Yugoslavia, ICJ, Judgment of 11 July 1996 and Jorgić v. Germany, ECtHR, judgment, 2007

[3] See: art. 2 of the ICTR Staute; art. 4 of ICTY Statute; and art. 6 ff the ICC

[4] WERLE G.: Principles of International Criminal Law, OUP, 2014, p. 300

Errores

Dime hasta dónde estarías dispuesto a llegar. 

Dime cuál es tu último pensar antes de cerrar los ojos 

Dime a qué tienes miedo

Dime qué te gusta hacer 

Dime cuál es el centro de tu gravedad 

Dime adónde vas y de dónde vienes 

Dime qué es lo importante en la vida, qué no y qué no te va ni te viene 

Dime cuál es tu atardecer preferido 

Dime quién hizo el mejor golpe de Estado

Dime cuál es tu color favorito 

Pero mientras espero a que me digas todo eso, mientras espero que me abraces, me quites los miedos y te bebas conmigo la vida a sorbos, déjame que te diga que la  respuesta se halla en el pronombre tú. 

Déjame que te diga que contigo hasta el fin, que eres tú quien invade mis sueños, quien habita mis noches y se desliza por mis días. 

Déjame que te diga que tengo miedo a que te vayas, que no estés cuando me levanto y que cierre los ojos sin estar apoyado en tu pecho compartiendo tu aliento. 

Déjame que mientras te digo que me gusta como hueles, 

te bese el cuello lentamente y aproveche para recorrerte de norte a sur.  Ya sé que entonces te oiría quejarte de mí por tomar ventaja de la ocasión. 

Sólo sabiendo eso sabrás qué me gusta hacer; así como que mi órbita eres tú: que diste un golpe en el centro de mi corazón para instalarte en la capital de mi felicidad. 

Déjame decirte que tú eres mi atardecer preferido, la última cucharada de coulant, un cena sorpresa en un espectacular hotel en el Tibidabo, la vida que quiero tener y la persona con la que quiero estar cada Viernes en la madrugada. 

Déjame decirte que mi color favorito es el de tus ojos, el de tu sonrisa y el de tu ilusión. Déjame decirte que mi color favorito es el de tus abrazos, tu forma de caminar y tu pronto repentino. 

Déjame decirte que eres mi hoy, mi mañana y mi siempre.