SU College of Law professor joins international criminal tribunal prosecutors to issue joint declaration

SU College of Law professor joins international criminal tribunal prosecutors to issue joint declaration September 04, 2007Jaclyn D. Grossojgrosso@law.syr.edu

A meeting of most of the living international criminal prosecutors — from Nuremberg to the International Criminal Court — yielded a joint declaration of nine international prosecutors, including SU College of Law professor David M. Crane, calling for an end to the “impunity by perpetrators of crimes of concern to the international community.” The statement was written and signed on Aug. 29 as part of the International Humanitarian Law Dialogs co-sponsored by Syracuse University College of Law at the famous Chautauqua Institution in upstate New York. The International Humanitarian Law Dialogs marked the 100th anniversary of The Hague Rules of 1907, the cornerstone of the laws regulating armed conflict today.

“It was a historic moment to see nearly all of the living international prosecutors from Nuremberg to the International Criminal Court together at the dialogs,” Crane says. “It shows that the legacy of Justice Robert H. Jackson, who had close ties to Syracuse University and its College of Law, lives on in their work around the world.”

Crane, who is the former chief prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, was among the lead discussants in the daylong event and one of the signers of the Chautauqua Declaration. Also present were two of the three remaining prosecutors of the historic International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, Henry King and Whitney Harris. Other participants were Luis Moreno-Ocampo, prosecutor, International Criminal Court; Stephen Rapp, chief prosecutor, Special Court for Sierra Leone; Hassan Jallow, prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; Robert Petit, co-prosecutor, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia; David Tolbert, deputy prosecutor, International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia; and Sir Desmond DeSilva, former chief prosecutor for the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

The Chautauqua Declaration included the signatories’ assertions that pursuit of international justice is not a choice, but a matter of law. Specifically, the document calls for the arrest of international criminal indictees Ratko Mladic, Radovan Karadzic, Felician Kabuga, Joseph Kony and Ahmed Harun, among others “sought by international justice.” The full text of the Declaration is available at http://www.asil.org/chaudec.

The American Society of International Law (ASIL), The Robert H. Jackson Center and Washington University’s Whitney R. Harris Institute for Global Legal Studies also sponsored the event.