Wolfgang Kaleck & Michael Ratner 
International Prosecution of Human Rights Crimes 

1 In his separate opinion in the Nuclear Weapons case, Judge Mohammed Bed- oui, then the President of the International Court of Justice, called nuclear we- ons “the absolute evil. ” There are a few other things which merit being called – solutely evil. They are the predicates of the International Criminal Court and of various domestic laws patterned on the Rome Statute: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression. A conference organized by the Berlin-based Republikanischer Anwältinnen- und Anwälteverein (Republican Lawyers As- ciation) and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights was held in Berlin in June 2005 under the title Globalverfassung versus Realpolitik (Global Constitution versus Realpolitik). It dealt with the tension between these univ- sally accepted norms and the actual practice of governments in an age charact- ized by the ill-defined concept of the “war on terror. ” This book is the outcome of that conference. It is intended for a wide variety of readers: academics, all kinds of jurists, as well as human rights activists, who sometimes know more about the applicable law than the legal experts. It owes its existence to a paradox: On the one hand, new structures for dealing with the most serious international crimes are being put into place.

Table of Content

Fundamental Questions.- Protection of Human Rights by Means of Criminal Law: On the Relationship between Criminal Law and Politics.- Global Constitutional Struggles: Human Rights between colère publique and colère politique.- The Future of Universal Jurisdiction.- On the Aims and Actual Consequences of International Prosecution of Human Rights Crimes.- Developments in Law and Practice.- Prosecuting International Crimes at the National and International Level: Between Justice and Realpolitik.- Addressing the Relationship between State Immunity and Jus Cogens Norms: A Comparative Assessment.- Universal Jurisdiction: Developing and Implementing an Effective Global Strategy.- German International Criminal Law in Practice: From Leipzig to Karlsruhe.- The Pinochet Effect and the Spanish Contribution to Universal Jurisdiction.- Implementing the Principle of Universal Jurisdiction in France.- The Political Funeral Procession for the Belgian UJ Statute.- The Approach of the United Kingdom to Crimes under International Law: The Application of Extraterritorial Jurisdiction.- Coming to Terms with Genocide in Rwanda: The Role of International and National Justice.- The “War on Terror” in Particular.- Military Necessity, Torture, and the Criminality of Lawyers.- The Prohibition of Torture: Absolute Means Absolute.- Litigating Guantánamo.- Universality, Complementarity, and the Duty to Prosecute Crimes Under International Law in Germany.