The document discusses trials held by international courts, including the trials of Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, and cases handled by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. It provides background on the International Court of Justice and describes some of the major cases they have heard. Specifically, it outlines the charges against Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity, the charges against Milosevic for genocide and crimes against humanity, and precedents set by the ICTR, including the first time rape was classified as genocide.

1. The International Court of
Justice
Trial of Saddam Hussein &
Slobodan Milosevic
The Tribunal Court of Rwanda

2. Significance of the Study
• Studying on what is the International Court of
Justice (ICJ) all about helps us in analyzing
how the world court doing their
responsibilities with regards to the different
cases of the world. The span of time of which
a case will precede to the court and how cases
are being trialled. In connection with the
International Court of Justice, studying some
of the important trials or issues such as the
trials of Saddam Hussein, Milosevic,
Sopanama/Rwanda we can distinguish how
the world court is important with regards to
the analyzation of issues, cases or disputes
and how it is being solved. Studying this
certain issues helps us to be aware on the
happenings in the international stage.

3. Area of Study
• Iraq's former dictator, Saddam
Hussein, could face as many as a
dozen trials. The first - the only
one at present - is in many ways
the simplest, and is expected to
see Saddam charged with the
premeditated murder, torture and
forced expulsion and
disappearance of the residents of
one Shia Muslim town. These all
fall under the category of crimes
against humanity in international
law.

4. • Slobodan Milošević was the President
of Serbia (originally the Socialist
Republic of Serbia) from 1989 to 1997
and President of the Federal Republic
of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000, was
indicted for crimes against humanity:
genocide, deportation, murder and
torture to name a few. The
prosecution took two years to present
its case on the first part of the trial.

5. The Int’l Criminal Tribunal
for Rwanda
• The International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda, where one
of its objectives include putting
an end to impunity and
contributing to the process of
national reconciliation which
would lead to lasting peace in
the country.

6. Facts of the Case
• The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is the
principal judicial organ of the United
Nations (UN). It was established in June 1945
by the Charter of the United Nations and
began work in April 1946. The seat of the
Court is at the Peace Palace in The Hague
(Netherlands). The Court’s role is to settle, in
accordance with international law, legal
disputes submitted to it by States and to give
advisory opinions on legal questions referred
to it by authorized United Nations organs and
specialized agencies. The Court is composed of
15 judges, who are elected for terms of office
of nine years by the United Nations General
Assembly and the Security Council. It is
assisted by a Registry, its administrative
organ. Its official languages are English and
French.

7. Two ways that cases come before ICJ
• When states submit contentious case between
them
• When one of the organs or agencies of the UN ask
the ICJ for an advisory opinion.
• The date of the institution of proceedings, which is
that of the receipt by the Registrar of the special
agreement or application, marks the opening of
proceedings before the Court. Contentious
proceedings include a written phase and oral
phase.

8. Trial of Saddam Hussein
• Saddam Hussein was committed “crimes against humanity”
means any of the following acts when committed as part of a
widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian
population, with knowledge of the attack in willful killing,
deportation or forcible transfer of population, imprisonment
or other severe deprivation of physical liberty in violation of
fundamental norms of international law, torture, enforced
disappearance of persons, and other inhumane acts of a
similar character intentionally causing great suffering, or
serious injury to the body or other physical and mental
health. Saddam will not have killed the more than 300,000
whose deaths he could plausibly be charged with by his own
hand, so the prosecutors will attempt to establish that he
ordered the killing or was responsible for it. Evidence for a
chain of command is hard to come by but, in similar
tribunals, cases have been built on witness statements and
paper trails.

9. • Prosecutors also use the principle of command
responsibility - that a leader knew, or should have
known, about murders taking place by forces
under his command but took no action either to
prevent them or punish those involved. In parallel,
forensic evidence is required to prove that the
massacres took place. With all the upsets that have
taken place during the trial, few Iraqis now believe
the process can be fair. Iraq's government has
reintroduced the death penalty, which was
suspended under the US-led occupation. Iraq's
president, Jalal Talabani, is a known opponent of
the death penalty, however, and in the event the
court decides to execute Saddam, may delegate the
signing of his death warrant to someone else.

10. Trial of Slobodan Milosevic
• He was the President of Serbia from 1989 to 1997 and President of
the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1997 to 2000.
• Slobodan Milosevic was also charged to commit “crimes
against humanity”. He and his men deported 740,000
Kosovo Albanians and for the murder of 340 others. The
indictment is broken down into four counts: Count 1:
Deportation (a crime against humanity), Count 2: Murder (a
crime against humanity), Count 3: Murder (a violation of the
customs of war), and Count 4: Persecution (a crime against
humanity). The charges are based on two theories of liability.
The first is command responsibility: the responsibility of a
superior for actions committed by his subordinates. As the
civilian commander of the Yugoslav military and police forces,
Milosevic holds an affirmative legal obligation to prevent his
forces from committing, encouraging, or enabling others to
commit atrocities in Kosovo. The second is personal
responsibility for committing, planning, instigating
(persuading), ordering or aiding and abetting war crimes and
crimes against humanity. He was then sentenced to jail.

11. International Criminal Tribunal for
Rwanda
• This is the first international court of law established to prosecute
high-ranking individuals for massive human rights violations in
Africa.
• In April 1994. mass killings began in Rwanda and within a few
months. as many as one million people were killed in a genocide and
other crimes against humanity which shocked the world and
shamed the international community. Thousands more were
tortured, raped and beaten. The Tribunal was established in order to
judge people with violations of international law in Rwanda (and
those people responsible for the Rwandan Genocide.)

12. Major Cases before the ICTR
• On 9 January 1997, the ICTR held its first trial, one of the most
momentous cases in international law: The Prosecutor v. Jean-Paul
Akayesu. During the 1994 Rwandan Genocide, Jean-Paul Akayesu
served as the mayor of Taba, a city in which thousands of Tutsis
were systematically raped, tortured and murdered. At the start of
his trial, Akayesu faced 12 charges of genocide, crimes against
humanity and violations of common article 3 of the 1949 Geneva
Conventions in the form of murder, torture and cruel treatment. In
June 1997, the Prosecutor added “three counts of crimes against
humanity and violations of common article 3/Additional Protocol II
for rape, inhumane acts and indecent assault” (Report of the ICTR
(S/1997/868)). These additional counts marked the first time in the
history of international law that rape was considered a component of
genocide.
• Akayesu is currently serving life imprisonment in Mali.

13. (Major Cases before the ICTR)
• ICTR also set two major precedents in the trial against Jean
Kambanda (The Prosecutor v. Jean Kambanda). Kambanda served as
Prime Minister of the Interim Government of Rwanda throughout the
entire 100 days of genocide. Kambanda was brought before the ICTR
in October 1997 and pleaded guilty to six counts of genocide,
conspiracy to commit genocide, direct and public incitement to
commit genocide, complicity in genocide, and crimes against
humanity. Kambanda’s guilty plea and subsequent conviction
marked not only the first time in international law that a Head of
Government was convicted of genocide, but also that an accused
person acknowledged his guilt for genocide before an international
criminal tribunal.
• Like Akayesu, Kambanda is currently serving life imprisonment in
Mali.

14. Analysis of the Study

15. Saddam Hussein’s Trial
• Why does the trial attract so much attention one may wonder and
why do so many people care about ensuring fair proceedings for an
ex-dictator on trial for major human rights violations, a dictator that
himself made extensive use of a special Revolutionary Court
guaranteeing fast executions but by no means due process of law.
First there is the hope that this trial might serve as a model for Iraq
and might help to re-establish trust in the judicial system and its
protection against the deprivation of rights which has been strongly
eroded by the past 23 years of Saddam’s reign and to thereby allow
the country a “new start” based on firm legal principles. In order to
help Iraq through the very delicate transition phase, shifting away
from a violent suppressive dictatorship towards a fragile new
democracy, the trial will need to open avenues for reconciliation,
provide justice for those whose rights were violated and publicly
acknowledge the atrocities that have happened in the past decades.
Further more by holding Saddam accountable, the current criminal
proceedings add yet another name to the list of recent precedents in
which heads of state had to face charges for violating international
law. The trial might thereby serve as another mosaic stone in
establishing the rule of law and deter others from stepping over the
lines drawn by international agreements and custom in the area of
international criminal law.

16. Slobodan Milosevic’s Trial
• As the most important moment for international
justice, Milosevic's trial is a possible watershed.
Charged with committing genocide and crimes
against humanity in Bosnia and crimes against
humanity in Kosovo and Croatia, he is the first
former head of state to land in the dock of an
international war crimes tribunal. The trial's
success or failure will therefore shape all future
efforts at punishing the world's bloodiest war
criminals -- including those at the International
Criminal Court (ICC) that started up in March, and
any postwar tribunals in Iraq. International justice
must not only be done, but also be made to look
useful and appealing so that future politicians will
decide, to choose "justice, as a policy."

17. International Tribunal Court of
Rwanda
• The Supreme Court of Rwanda understands the
critical need to manage information properly,
especially as documents are the basis of evidence.
Without planning for records management
controls, the Court is at risk of compromising the
evidentiary value of records that are needed to
attest to court transactions and processes. This
would have a serious impact on the timely
administration of justice for litigants.

18. CONCLUSION- Saddam Hussein
• Saddam’s trial was intended to validate the war in Iraq, and provide support
for the arguments of the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ that the only effective way
to respond to the law-preserving violence of Saddam’s regime was with
lawmaking violence. In the trial, the law-preserving violence of Saddam’s
regime encountered both the law-preserving and lawmaking violence of the
new regime. Yet the trial also demonstrates that violence is not the only
response to violence: Saddam and his co-defendants resorted to disruptive
play in response to the legal performance of state violence. The international
criminal court was set up to hear such cases as Saddam is likely to appear
in, but its jurisdiction extends from its foundation in 2002 and it cannot be
used to hear charges relating to events before that date. There was also a
political motive to trying Saddam in Iraq, as the new state attempts to
demonstrate to its citizens that it has a functioning judiciary. Putting the
court in Iraq was thought to be a way to keep the events close to the people
who had been the principal victims of the Ba'athist regime. But the trial has
descended into chaos, with Saddam entering into slanging matches with the
judge, the assassination of two defense lawyer and a third fleeing the
country in fear. The Iraqi higher criminal court, which was formerly known
as the Iraqi special tribunal (the name some still call it). It was set up under
the US-UK occupation by the Iraqi governing council with a remit to
prosecute the crimes of the 1968-2003 Ba'athist regimes, both in Iraq and by
Iraqis in neighboring countries.

19. Milosevic
It has been called the most important war crimes trial
since Nazi leaders were prosecuted in Nuremberg, Germany
after World War II. Slobodan Milosevic -- dubbed the
"Butcher of the Balkans" by his enemies but considered a
hero for those fighting for a Greater Serbia -- faces charges of
genocide and "crimes against humanity" for his part in three
separate but closely related wars that tore apart the former
Yugoslavia. What he did caused severe trauma to the society
during that time. His life was also significant because the
people can see his climb to power as the leader of a collapsing
communist country, from being a person having a career in
banking.

20. Tribunal Court of Rwanda
Our problems are man-made. Therefore, they may be solved
by man. No problem of human destiny is beyond human
beings. This means that We, the people are able to solve the
majority of our problems, but we lack the will to do so, we do
not lack the capability, we are simply unwilling to solve our
problems. By not standing up and not taking the load upon
us, we create more problems. The highest manifestation of
life is this: ‘that a being governs its own actions’. The
question is whether we are willing to transcend the division
and hatred, and become people who are determined to have
a honest dialogue about the root causes of the perpetual
problems we face in order to find durable solutions based on
a genuine and truthful national reconciliation.

21. Recommendation
• The duties and responsibilities of the International
Court of Justice (ICJ) must continue in serving the
global arena in assessing in settling dispute
without bias. They must serve and find justice
whole-heartedly. In engaging any disputes, we all
know that there is a winner and a looser; we hope
that they will find the better solution for each
problem. After all, ICJ was made to intervene such
issues to achieve a conclusion to a certain case.

22. Thank you!