Tenth Summer Session, Sunday 3 to Friday 15 August 2008
Celebrating the 10th Anniversary of the Salzburg Law School on International Criminal Law, Humanitarian Law and Human Rights Law - and the Statute
Reviewing the Review in Advance - Preparing Special Amendments to the Statute, the Elements and the Rules
This year’s Tenth Anniversary Summer Session will take a look ahead: at the first review conference of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) according to article 123 (1) of the Statute, at potentials to strengthen international criminal law and its enforcement and more generally at the future of international criminal justice.
The first review conference of the Rome Statute to be convened by the Secretary General of the United Nations seven years after the entry into force of the Statute was originally considered an opportunity to take up and eventually finalize issues, which could not be solved during the Rome Conference. Despite the initial proposals’ emphasis on a review of the list of crimes falling under the jurisdiction of the Court, the Rome Statute contains no mandatory language for the first review conference to deal with the Statute’s substantive law. Apart from foreseeing a review of Article 124, the Statute provides hardly any guideline (neither procedural nor substantive) for this conference. Relevant decisions, therefore, are largely guided by political considerations.
The ASP has meanwhile initiated an exchange of views on the review conference, decided to hold it in 2010 and endorsed draft rules of procedures of the review conference. Discussions regarding the scope of the conference have so far emphasised the need to strengthen international criminal law and the ICC as its centrepiece. Apart from a strong assumption that the crime of aggression will be on the agenda of the review conference, no formal talks have taken place in this respect. However, preparations are still at an early stage and it was suggested that no proposals for amendment shall be submitted before July 2009. Scholars, on the other hand, have continued proposing possible amendments to the Statute. SLS will particularly deal with all pertinent issues concerning the review conference: its legal basis, procedural rules, a potential review of substantive and procedural regulations, as well as the wider scope of the review conference to consolidate achievements of international criminal law since the adoption of the Rome Statute in July 1998.
In addition, SLS will provide updates on the status of the procedures pending before the ICC. Procedural and practical considerations related to the four situations under investigation, including issues such as Security Council referral and the practice of self-referrals, will be analysed. A particular focus will be drawn on the situation of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, since all three persons currently awaiting trial before the ICC relate to this situation. Reason enough to take a closer look at the background of this conflict. The Tenth Summer Session will further deal with questions of jurisdiction and admissibility, prosecutorial discretion and victims rights. Next to these subjects, latest developments with regard to other international criminal courts and tribunals, such as the performance of the ad-hoc Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda under their completion strategy, or the trial against Charles Taylor will be covered.
Within the framework of SLS’s Tenth Anniversary Session, the first SLS Alumni Meeting will take place Thursday 7 to Sunday 10 August 2008. All former participants of SLS are heartedly invited to join this unprecedented event. Part of the programme will be a Symposium on “The Future of International Criminal Justice” on Friday, 8 August 2008, which brings together some of our most prominent speakers of the previous sessions of SLS. In addition, according to a call for papers, a maximum of ten SLS Alumni will be offered the opportunity to present their views, analyses and concrete proposals for the future of international criminal justice.
Speakers of the Tenth Session will be most distinguished scholars and practitioners in the field of international criminal law. Among them,
- Keynote address: Luis Moreno-Ocampo, Prosecutor, International Criminal Court
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Morten Bergsmo, Consultant to the ICC responsible for the external development of the Legal Tools, Senior Researcher, International Peace Research Institute Oslo;
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Gilbert Bitti, Senior Legal Advisor to the Pre-Trial Division, ICC;
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Prof. Roger Clark, Board of Governors Professor, Rutgers University School of Law;
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Dr. David Donat Cattin, Director of the International Law and Human Rights Programme, Parliamentarians for Global Action (PGA);
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Prof. Benjamin Ferencz, A former Nuremberg War Crime Prosecutor, author and frequent lecturer on international criminal courts and world peace (www.benferencz.org);
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Christopher Hall, Legal Advisor, International Justice Project, Amnesty International, UK;
- Thordis Ingadottir, Associate Professor, Reykjavík University;
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Prof. William Schabas, Professor of Human Rights Law, National University of Ireland Galway, Director Irish Centre for Human Rights;
- Jennifer Trahan, Visiting Lecturer, Columbia University; Of Counsel, International Justice Program, Human Rights Watch;
- Prof. Otto Triffterer, Professor for Austrian and International Criminal Law and Procedure, University of Salzburg.
The academic programme runs Monday 4 through Thursday 14 August, daily from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. with a free week-end. The course consists of lectures, work-shops and case studies and will be held at the University of Salzburg, Faculty of Law, a 16th-century residence located in the centre of the old town.
Participants will obtain a certificate of attendance, but may also take an exam for which 4 credits according to the European Credit Transfer System are available.
Archive
SLS Programme 2008
First SLS Alumni Meeting 2008
The Future of International Criminal Justice
SLS Programme 2007
SLS Programme 2006
Salzburg Retreat 2006
The Future of the International Criminal Court
SLS Programme 2005
SLS Programme 2004
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