Ambos, Kai; Bock, Stefanie --- "Individual criminal responsibility" [2016] ELECD 1517; in de Brouwer, Anne-Marie; Smeulers, Alette (eds), "The Elgar Companion to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2016) 202

Book Title: The Elgar Companion to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

Editor(s): de Brouwer, Anne-Marie; Smeulers, Alette

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781784711696

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: Individual criminal responsibility

Author(s): Ambos, Kai; Bock, Stefanie

Number of pages: 31

Abstract/Description:

In its judgement against the major war criminals of World War II, the International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg (IMT) held quite apodictically that individual criminal responsibility has ‘long been recognized’, and stated further with a very famous dictum that: [E]nough has been said to show that individuals can be punished for violations of International Law. Crimes against International Law are committed by men not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of International Law be enforced. About 50 years later, Article 6(1) ICTR Statute and the verbatim identical Article 7(1) ICTY Statute confirmed this ruling by providing: A person who planned, instigated, ordered, committed or otherwise aided and abetted in the planning, preparation or execution of a crime […] of the present Statute shall be individually responsible for the crime. Although the concept of individual criminal responsibility for violations of humanitarian and human rights law thus seems to be universally recognized, the constituting elements of such a responsibility are less clear. In this regard, Article 6(1) ICTR Statute offers only little guidance, but leaves the concretization of the listed modes of individual liability to the jurisprudence. As to the meaning of the term ‘committed’, the Kayishema and Ruzindana Appeals Chamber (AC) followed the ruling of the ICTY Tadi_ and confirmed that committing means ‘first and foremost the physical perpetration of a crime by the offender himself’.