Summary
The jurisprudential basis, as Falk sets it out, for trying serious crimes in national courts regardless of where the crime was committed or the nationality of perpetrator or victim — the legal machinery behind the accountability claims of the Palestinian Legitimacy struggle (Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope, PDF p.28-30).
Details
- Its basis, in Falk’s account: “regardless of where a crime was committed or the national identity of the alleged perpetrator or victim, a national court has the authority to attach its law” (PDF p.28).
- It received “a strong shot in the arm” from the war-crimes trials at the end of World War II and was institutionalised internationally in 2002 in the International Criminal Court; the Nuremberg judgment, flawed as “victors’ justice”, generated the Nuremberg Principles, “considered by international law consensus to be universally binding” (PDF p.29).
- Its limit, in Falk’s account: the leadership of the United States-led hegemonic hierarchy enjoys impunity, “an exemption from accountability to international criminal law”, while geopolitical pariahs are prosecuted (PDF p.29).
Related pages
Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope, Lawfare, Legitimacy struggle