Limits on the Exercise of Universal Jurisdiction Especially about Other States Representatives' Immunities

ABSTRACT.Universal jurisdiction is the favorite technique used to prevent impunity for international crimes. It is one of the most effective methods to deter and prevent international crimes by increasing the like hood of prosecution and punishment of its perpetrators. As the Preamble of the Rome Statute states, impunity has became one of the evils of our time; the failure to prosecute serious crimes is considered as bad if not worse than the crime itself. So, the Resolution of section IV adopted by the XIII International Congress of Penal Law (Cairo, October 1-7, 1984) invites states to adopt the principle of universality their national law for the most serious offences order to ensure that such offences do not go unpunished. But, one of the most difficult questions is if there are limits to the exercise of the universal jurisdiction.Keywords: universal jurisdiction, impunity, international crimes, immunityActually, universal jurisdiction is the favorite technique used to prevent impunity for international crimes. It is one of the most effective methods to deter and prevent international crimes by increasing the likehood of prosecution and punishment of its perpetrators. As the Preamble of the Rome Statute states, impunity has became one of the evils of our time; the failure to prosecute serious crimes is considered as bad if not worse than the crime itself. So, the Resolution of section IV adopted by the XIII International Congress of Penal Law (Cairo, 1-7 October 1984) invites states to adopt the principle of universality their national law for the most serious offences order to ensure that such offences do not go unpunished.But, one of the most difficult questions is if there are limits to the exercise of the universal jurisdiction. Especially complicated are the topics of immunities of the representatives of other One difficult question is whether heads of state and diplomats can invoke immunity as a bar to the exercise of universal jurisdiction. With respect to some international crimes, there is no doubt that immunity cannot exonerate the person to whom it applies from all criminal responsibility. Immunity has been eliminated since the Nuremberg Charter and the judgments of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. There is no treaty or customary law practice that removes the temporal immunity of heads of states or diplomats while they are office. Also, the Statute of International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Article 7.2, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda Statute, Article 6 and the International Criminal Court Statute have foreseen that immunity shall no case exempt a person from criminal responsibility, nor shall it constitute a ground for reduction of sentence.The International Court of Justice1 considers that the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, only for the duration of their tenure office, enjoy of immunity from criminal jurisdiction and inviolability other In its Judgment the Arrest Warrant of 10 April 2000, the Court states that any exception to the immunity and the inviolability of the leaders practice does not exist customary international law, when they are suspected of having committed war crimes or crimes against the humanity.In paragraph 51 of the Arrest Warrant (10 April 2000) about Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Belgium, the court states that in international law it is firmly established that as also diplomatic and consular agents, certain holders of high-ranking office a state, such as the Head of State, Head of Government and Minister of Foreign Affairs, enjoy immunities from jurisdiction other states. Results that immunity from jurisdiction enjoy by incumbent Ministers for Foreign Affairs does not mean that they enjoy impunity respect of any crimes that they might have committed, irrespective of their gravity. Immunity from criminal jurisdiction and individual criminal responsibility are separate concepts. …