Abstract
We study the role of international tribunals, like the International Criminal Court (ICC), as an effective way of reducing the number and/or gravity of crimes against humanity. The action of the ICC is directed against leaders that promote or tolerate these kinds of crimes, that is, political authorities, army commanders, civil leaders, etc. In order to simulate the action of the ICC we build a hierarchical society where the most important leaders have the highest connectivity and can spread their points of view, or their orders, through a chain of less but still highly connected deputy chiefs or opinion chieftains. In this way, if they practice misconduct, corruption, or any kind of discriminatory or criminal actions against individuals or groups, it would very difficult and improbable that they will be prosecuted by the courts of their own country. It is to alleviate this situation that the ICC was created. Its mission is to process and condemn crimes against humanity though a supranational organism that can act on criminal leaders in any country. In this study, the action of the ICC is simulated by removing the corrupt leader and replacing it by a “decent” one. However, as the action of the corrupt leader could have spread among the population by the time the ICC acts, we try to determine if a unique action of the ICC is sufficient or if further actions are required, depending on the degree of deterioration of the human rights in the hypothetical country. The results evidence the positive effect of the ICC action with a relatively low number of interventions. The effect of the ICC is also compared with the action of the local national judiciary system.
Highlights
The aftermaths of the two major war conflicts of the 20th century showed the imperative need of official institutions capable of doing justice in a global way, beyond the limits imposed by the borders of the nations
We have presented here a simple model of a scale free complex network representing the network of influences in a society with a hierarchical structure
On the other hand agents with one or a few connections are very susceptible to contagion. This is at variance with most models of contagion on complex networks, where the most connected agents are more susceptible to infection
Summary
The aftermaths of the two major war conflicts of the 20th century showed the imperative need of official institutions capable of doing justice in a global way, beyond the limits imposed by the borders of the nations. After WW1, the first initiative to judge political leaders accused of war crimes took place in the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. In this conference, the participants discussed about the convenience of establishing an international tribunal that would act when the states were absent or acted irresponsibly. After serious episodes of state-sponsored crimes, similar tribunals were organized including those set up in Bosnia and Rwanda in the 1990’s. All these examples were isolated reactions to particular events. There was a lack of a permanent and internationally recognized tool of justice to punish political leaders responsible of crimes against humanity
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