Morten Bergsmo and Cheah Wui Ling (eds), Old Evidence and Core International Crimes

Abstract

The anthology Old Evidence and Core International Crimes puts a topic on the agenda of high relevance for international and internationalized criminal courts as well as for domestic courts addressing human rights violations of a predecessor regime. Typically, these courts deal with cases where between the commission of crime and commencement of trial lies a considerable time span, sometimes even decades. Therefore, gaining and evaluating ‘old evidence’, as it is referred to here, plays a crucial role. The anthology appears in the publication series of Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher, a non-profit publisher committed to open access publishing of high international standard in the fields of international criminal law, transitional justice and international law.1 The book is edited by the publisher’s editor-in-chief, Morten Bergsmo, together with Cheah Wui Ling. Most of the chapters of the book were presented as papers at a seminar organized by the Forum of International Criminal and Humanitarian Law in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on 11 September 2011. The background to this seminar was the decision taken by Bangladesh to initiate investigations into massive crimes committed during the war in 1971. Therefore, while the first part of the book examines the question of old evidence in international criminal law from a rather general perspective, the second part focuses on questions regarding the latest developments in Bangladesh.