The Un Security Council and the Enforcement of Individual Criminal Responsibility: The Darfur Case

Abstract

Throughout the twentieth century international law and international human rights law have significantly developed. One of the main reasons behind this fact lies on the violations of human rights in a large-scale: The international community has witnessed two World Wars and a number of non-international armed conflicts costing the lives of millions during the century.1 Unfortunately, the twenty-first century has also started with the international and non-international armed conflicts in which civilians have been killed, tortured, raped on the one hand, and villages, towns, hospitals, schools, mosques, churches etc. have been destructed on the other in the different parts of the world. The ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Palestine, Israel and Sudan are just a few examples proving this fact. The practice developed by the international community in relation to the individual criminal responsibility of persons accountable for the violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law should be considered as one of the most important developments in international law. The generally accepted starting point for such practice depends upon the establishment of the International Military Tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo by the Allied Powers after the Second World War.2 In response to the atrocities committed in the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda in the last decade of the twentieth century, the establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (the ICTY) and Rwanda (the ICTR) by the Security Council acting under Chapter VII of the UN Charter was a turning point for the