ICLN Newsletter-
September 2002
Content
- ICLN
- ICLN 1st
Wednesday
- Official Website
of the International
Criminal Court
- The
Hague Prize for
International Law
- Symposium
"State Cooperation and the International Criminal Court"
- ICLN Annual
Conference 2002 "Establishing
the ICC"
- News from the
Humanitarian Law Center
- Recent
Publications
- ICLN
Website
ICLN
ICLN, the International Criminal Law Network,
has been officially launched in June
2002. Already, ICLN has
welcomed over 130
members from 33
different countries. In
addition, various
organisations have become an Institutional Member of ICLN. The
rapid growth of ICLN confirms
the need for a global social and professional network in the field of
international criminal law.
ICLN 1st Wednesday
On Wednesday 4
September 2002 the first ICLN 1st Wednesday, the monthly social
event of ICLN, took place
in Sociëteit de Witte in The Hague. Prof. Ruth Wedgwood of Yale
University gave a lecture on " The Position of the USA in
International Criminal Law ". More
than 100 international academics, practitioners and policymakers
attended the meeting.
Encouraged by the success of this first
meeting, ICLN is honoured to invite you for the next ICLN 1st
Wednesday on Wednesday 2 October 2002 from 5.00-7.00 pm
in the Peace Palace in The Hague. At this occasion there
will be a forum discussion on ‘The Impact of the ICC on
Transatlantic Relations’ with:
-
Chair: Mr. S. van
Hoogstraten, Director Carnegie-Foundation
/ Peace Palace
-
Drs. J.T.
Hoekema, Chairman Netherlands Atlantic
Commission, Former Foreign Affaris Spokesman D66
-
Prof. Dr. G.A.M.
Strijards,
Senior Legal Advisor of the High Prosecutorial Office of the
Netherlands
Please inform
Marloes Vermeeren by e-mail (secretary@ICLN.net) if
you would like to attend this meeting.
Official Website of the ICC
The Advance Team of the ICC has prepared a basic
website for the ICC at www.icc.int.
The website is the official website of the ICC and includes the
following:
1) The ICC at a Glance: a) General
information b) Organs of the Court c) Jurisdiction d) The next
steps e) Status of Ratification f) ICC related
documents g) Questions and answers
2) Media information
3) Internet links
4) Contact details
5) Employment opportunities
The Hague Prize
On September 18, 2002 the Mayor of
The Hague and the Chairman of the The Hague Prize Foundation
officially introduced the (newly established) The Hague Prize for
International Law. The prize can be awarded to physical persons
and/or legal persons who - through publications or achievements in the
practice of law - have made a special contribution to the development
of public international law and/or private international law or to the
advancement of the rule of law in the world. The award ceremony shall
take place in the Peace Palace in The Hague.
The prize consists of an
amount of €50.000,- and is awarded at least every four years. The
first award will be presented in the year 2004. A Nominating Committee
will supply a recommendation for the award to the Board of the
Foundation. Reasoned suggestions for candidates may be submitted to
the Secretary of the Committee. Three months before the award
ceremony, the Nominating Committee shall make a recommendation to the
Board of the Foundation for a candidate for the prize.
Address The Hague Prize Foundation:
Bob Lagerwaard LL.M,MA.-
secretary
PO Box 29761
NL-2502 The Hague, the
Netherlands
Phone: +31 70 3882334
Fax: +31 70 3382133
ICLN would like to bring
to your attention a symposium organised by one of ICLN's
Institutional Members: Knoops & Partners Lawyers.
On Sunday 20 October, Knoops
& Partners organises an international symposium on the ICC
titled "State cooperation and the International Criminal Court".
At the Amsterdam Hilton
Hotel, 6 guest speakers from the ICTY e.g. H.E.Sharon A.Williams and
Graham Blewitt, and other distinguished speakers like Dr. Frederik A.
de Wolff (Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Forensic
Sciences Expert Centre) and Dr.E. Hirsch Ballin (former Minister of
Justice in the Netherlands) will give short presentations on the
ICC.
The symposium will take
place Sunday 20 October, 13.00 hrs at the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel,
Apollolaan 138 Amsterdam.
News from the
Humanitarian Law Center
The Humanitarian Law
Center in Yugoslavia, an Institutional
Member of ICLN, contributed the
following press releases for this Newsletter:
Kosovo serb acquitted
of war crime charges
On 4 September 2002 the
District Court in Prizren acquitted Kosovo Serb Sasa Grkovic for lack
of evidence of several counts of war crimes against the civilian
population. The decision of the panel, made up of two international
and one local judge, was unanimous. Sasa Grkovic (31) of Orahovac was
taken into custody on 2 June last year. He was indicted on 19 February
2002 and charged with war crimes against the civilian population under
Article 142 of the Yugoslav Criminal Code. The Court heard 23
witnesses during the trial which opened on 29 July.
Prokuplje court hands
down sentence for war crime
The Humanitarian Law
Center is pleased to note that the recent conviction of Ivan Nikolic
puts an end to the longstanding practice of allowing war crimes to go
unpunished. On 8 July this year, the District Court in Prokuplje found
Nikolic (30), a former Yugoslav Army reservist, guilty of killing two
Kosovo Albanian civilians, Vlaznimi Emini and Bahri Emini, near Penduh
village in Kosovo on 24 May 1999 and sentenced him to eight years in
prison. During the trial, individuals and groups acclaimed the
defendant as a hero and patriot who fought for Serbia's national
interests in Kosovo. In pronouncing the sentence, Presiding Judge
Dragan Tacic came out against those seeking to shield Nikolic from
responsibility by saying he would have been a patriot if he had shot
two enemy soldiers in combat but that the murder of two civilians made
him a war criminal.
ICLN
Annual Conference 2002
The staff of ICLN is
currently preparing the ICLN Annual Conference 2002. The
Conference will take place in the Peace Palace in The Hague, 18-20
December 2002. The Chair on the Opening Day of the Conference will be
Prof. Michael Scharf, Case Western Reserve University School of Law.
Prof. Roy S. Lee, Columbia Law School, is preparing a Simulation
Exercise for the last day of the Conference. The main themes of the
conference are:
-
The ICC and its Impact on International Relations
- The
Institutional Framework of the ICC
- Issue-analyses
of the Selection of Cases, Judges and Defence Lawyers
- Forensic Sciences & the ICC
Speakers that have confirmed
their contribution to the conference include:
Richard Adams, Owen
Beattie, Wim Deetman, Carla
Del Ponte, John Dugard, Barend Cohen, Baltasar
Garzón, Elise Groulx, Hans Holthuis, Michael Johnson, Claude Jorda, Michael
Kennedy, Philippe Kirsch, Ate Kloosterman, Geert Jan
Knoops, Albert Koeleman, Ingvar Kopp, Roy Lee, Sam Muller, Dick
Oosting, William Pace, Michael Scharf, James Stewart,
Jurgen Storbeck, Gerard Strijards, Otto Triffterer, Steven
Upton, Sergio Vieira de Mello, Sharon Williams, Michail Wladimiroff
ICLN Members will receive a
discount of €200,- on the registration fee of the
conference. The Brochure and Registration Form of the
conference will be available in October 2002. Please send our secretary
an e-mail
(secretary@ICLN.net) if
you would like to be included in the mailinglist. For other questions
please contact Wouter
Durville (w.durville@ICLN.net),
Project Manager of ICLN.
For up-to-date information
about the ICLN Annual Conference 2002 please visit
www.ICLN.net.
Publications by Maklu Publishers
ICLN Members
receive a discount of 10%
Strategies of the EU and the US in Combating Transnational Organized
Crime
B. De Ruyver, G. Vermeulen, T. Vander Beken (ed.)
ISBN 90 6215 819 6 - 2002 – 466 p. - € 110,-
Reeks IRCP
Hard cover
From 23 to 26 January 2001 the incoming Belgian
Presidency of the European Union organized an international conference
on the strategies of the European Union and the United States in
combating transnational organized crime. The conference gathered
policy-makers, police and judicial authorities and other actors with a
view to discussing important problems regarding the fight against
organized crime. Apart from focusing on the European dimension of the
subject (including Eastern Europe), the conference primarily addressed
co-operation with the United States.
This book collects, along with a number of plenary reports, texts that
have been presented and discussed at the conference.
Finding the best place for
prosecution
European study on jurisdiction
criteria
S. Steverlynck, S. Thomaes, T. Vander
Beken, G. Vermeulen
ISBN 90 6215 841 2 – 2002 – 91 p. - €
20,-
In
order to fight international crime, most EU Member States have
systematically extended their territorial and extra-territorial claims
of jurisdiction. As a consequence of this evolution, an increasing
number of international crimes can be prosecuted in more than one State.
Therefore, the question of whether a crime will be prosecuted has become
subordinate to the question of which State is in the best position to
prosecute.This book provides a new analysis of the question of how
conflicts of jurisdiction can be prevented or solved and what the
European Union's policy could be in that respect. A pragmatic,
realistic, and short-term solution is proposed, paying specific
attention to the rights of all parties involved.
Please visit "www.ICLN.net
--> Publications" for
more publications in international criminal law.
ICLN Website
The ICLN Website is
constantly in development and now includes:
-
a Forum for discussions on recent
developments in international criminal law
(post your opinions at
www.ICLN.net --> forum)
-
Information about recent publications,
with special discounts for ICLN Members
-
Links to various websites on
international criminal law
-
Information about Membership Registration
-
The
new downloadable Brochure of ICLN
Please
feel free forward this Newsletter to your colleagues
and friends.
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