R.M. Letschert

The Impact of Minority Rights Mechanisms

Minority Rights Mechanisms, Instruments and Beneficiaries.- Analysis of Aims and Specific Working Methods.- The Osce High Commissioner on National Minorities.- The Un Working Group on Minorities.- The COE Advisory Committee on Minorities.- Evaluating Strengths, Weaknesses, and Overlap.- An Analysis of the Three Mechanisms Through Case Studies.- The Involvement of the Three Mechanisms in Macedonia5.- The Involvement of the Three Mechanisms in Croatia.- Conditions and Factors Influencing the Implementation of Minority Rights.- Concluding Observations.- The Impact of Minority Rights Mechanisms.

Fresh eyes on the European refugee crisis

No abstract available. (Published: 12 May 2016) Citation: European Journal of Psychotraumatology 2016, 7 : 31847 -http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/ejpt.v7.31847

Introduction and definitions

The fight against terrorism is receiving increased attention due to recent worldwide large-scale terrorist acts. Long overdue, and at least since the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 in New York and Washington, attention has also been directed to victims of terrorism. However, there is no international legally binding instrument that sufficiently and specifically covers the needs of victims of terrorism. The EU Framework Decision of 15 March 2001 on the standing of victims in criminal proceedings (2001/220/JHA) includes victims of terrorism under the broader heading of victims of crime. The same situation regarding victims of terrorism exists at the level of the United Nations.1 At the level of the Council of Europe, the Committee of Ministers adopted, on 2 March 2005, Guidelines on the Protection of Victims of Terrorist Acts. These guidelines recognise that the suffering of victims of terrorist acts deserves national and international solidarity and support (the guidelines can be found in the appendix to Chapter 2 in the present volume). In addition, a group of experts drafted a report on ‘Victims of Terrorism – Policies and Legislation in Europe’2 that calls for the development of good practices regarding various issues concerning victims of terrorism, in view of the diversity of approaches in the Council of Europe Member States. In sum, existing legal instruments of international bodies like the EU, the Council of Europe and the UN dealing with victims of terrorism are relatively abstract or include victims of terrorism under the broader heading of victims of crime in general. In addition, on the national level of the EU Member States, policies and legislation vary widely.

Coherence in international criminal justice : A victimological perspective

This article develops a victimological perspective on international criminal justice, based on a review of the main victimological characteristics of international crimes: the complicity of government agencies, the large numbers of victims involved and the peculiar position of victims of international crimes, who at the time of the commission of the crimes are viewed as perpetrators and/or beyond the moral sphere, rather than as victims. Key elements of the framework concern the external coherence of the criminal justice reaction – the interlinking of criminal justice with other reparative efforts – as well as its internal coherence – the extent to which the procedures of international criminal justice are aligned with what it realistically can and should achieve. This latter aspect of coherence is used in an examination of victims’ rights in international criminal justice procedures.

Rights of Victims of crime : Tensions between an integrated approach and a limited legal basis for harmonisation

In this article an assessment is made of the potential contribution of the recently adopted Directive on the Rights of Crime Victims and the Directive on Trafficking in Human Beings to improving the position of victims of crime in general and victims of human trafficking in particular. Both legal acts aim to guarantee a comprehensive protection of victims of crime by multi-disciplinary action both at EU and national levels. Such an integrated approach is to be advocated. However, the question arises whether the EU is well equipped to take such action. Based on a critical analysis of the institutional changes in the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice with the adoption of the Treaty of Lisbon, the lack of implementation of EU legislative instruments in this particular area and the future EU accession to the ECHR, a tension between the new legal framework and the ambitious goals of the EU in relation to victim rights is identified.

Global Justice and Global Criminal Laws: The Importance of Nyaya in the Quest for Justice after International Crimes

One of the primary difficulties in discussing the development or emergence of global law is that the construct is used loosely and can mean different things in the eyes of different scholars. In this short contribution we will sidestep this problem by positing that a clearer understanding of global law can be found in the application of this broad idea to relevant areas of law, in which progression – at least rhetorically – towards a global legal order is underway and where the notion of contributing to global justice is explicit.This applies in particular to our own area of expertise; that of criminal law. The developments in the past decades in the field of international criminal law have been, in many ways, spectacular. There is the definition of a special class of international crimes; genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity; the installment of ad hoc tribunals – first for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia (the ICTR and ICTY), followed by judicial bodies for Sierra Leone, East Timor, Lebanon and Cambodia, ultimately culminating in the establishment of the permanent International Criminal Court. The connection of international criminal law to global justice is evident in the stated key aim of holding the ‘hostis sui generis’, the enemies of all mankind, to account for their atrocities. It is also made explicit in the view of the current prosecutor of the ICC, Luis Moreno Ocampo, that the ICC seeks global justice. The latter sentiment is echoed in the work of scholars of globalization who view the materialization of international criminal law as key elements of the development towards global justice (e.g. Held, 2002).However, the extent to which international criminal law is, in fact, contributing to global justice in the aftermath of international crimes remains to be seen. In our recent work we questioned the smooth connection between international criminal law and the perception of justice, which relies too heavily on the idea that going through the motions of westernized forms of international criminal law will automatically inculcate a sense of justice in victimized populations, while en passant contributing to the resurrection of the rule of law. In this brief contribution to the debate concerning global law we will sketch these problems in greater detail, before connecting this to more abstract notions of justice. The latter will draw heavily on Amartya Sen’s recent critique of John Rawls’ Theory of Justice, in which he employs the ancient Sanskrit notions of niti and nyaya. Finally, in conclusion, the analysis of international criminal law will be used as a base to provide more general notions about global justice and global law.

Assisting victims of terrorism

It is generally known that criminal justice systems around the world feature vast differences. They vary from strictly adversarial systems (e.g. in Anglo-Saxon countries) to more inquisitorial systems in many jurisdictions on mainland Europe. No matter the incompatibilities between the various systems, nowadays they have one thing in common; they all share the ambition of reform on behalf of victims of crime.1 The roots of these reformist efforts can be traced to the final quarter of the twentieth century. In 1985, two documents were issued urging the international community to enhance the status of victims. The first one is the United Nations Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power.2

New Faces of Victimhood; Reflections on the Unjust Sides of Globalization

This book documents the magnitude of this “unjust side of globalization.” It discusses how globalization victimizes ordinary people and how recent improvements in the protection of victims of crime are compromized by the same processes. On the positive side globalization may create a new sensitivity to victimhood in far away corners. This chapter provides an introduction to the main themes and concepts used in this book.

Addressing the needs of victims of terrorism in the OSCE region

Introduction Although terrorism has already featured on the international agenda for many years, attention to the plight of victims of terrorism has been conspicuous in its absence until fairly recently. The policy response to terrorism in most states was mainly restricted to adjusting police tactics and criminal procedural laws for organized crime to the new demands placed on law enforcement. The increased attention to terrorism in general due to recent worldwide large-scale terrorist acts has brought the victim of terrorism to the fore. Much of the public and political attention is directed towards ‘catastrophic’ terrorist attacks which lead to many casualties and fatalities.The possible consequences of terrorist acts can be disastrous; on 9/11, 2001, more than 2600 people died at the World Trade Center, 125 died at the Pentagon, and 256 died on the four aircraft, while some 250 others were injured. In Madrid, on 11/3, 2004, 191 people were killed. The Bali bombings of 12 October 2002 killed 202 people, 164 of whom were foreign nationals (resulting in so-called cross-border victims). A further 209 people were injured. The Beslan School Hostage that began on 1 September 2004 killed 334 civilians, including 186 children and hundreds more were injured. It has been stated that ‘times have changed and we have ‘progressed’ — or perhaps ‘regressed’ — from individual terror to ‘mass terror’. Since the terrorism of the late 19th century, there appears to be an erosion of moral inhibitions. While an anarchist terrorist would not throw a bomb against the police chief if he was in company of his wife and children, today — as we saw in Beslan — children are explicitly targeted. They were targeted not despite but because of their innocence, which, presumably in the eyes of the perpetrators, enhances the terrorists’ bargaining power.’ The latest Europol Situation and Trend Report noted that in particular

Collective victimisation of stateless peoples, the added value of the victim label

The lives of stateless peoples tend to be marked by social discrimination and state hostility. Framed as ‘undesirable aliens’, stateless communities that live within the territorial boundaries of hostile state-regimes are often approached with suspicion and internal security concerns rather than with sympathy for the forms of victimisation that define their existence. The present contribution reflects on the implications of a discourse of statelessness that fails to recognise the stateless as victims. We argue that negative labels attached to stateless peoples are partially facilitated by legal documents that fail to recognise victimhood that is often inherent to statelessness. Moreover, we submit that providing ‘the victim label’ to stateless communities, through academic debate and advocacy, might enhance their status in international law as well as at the domestic level.