Law Commons^™

Amnesty For Even The Worst Offenders, Jay Butler

Faculty Publications

In recent years, global policy makers have declared that heads of state must be held accountable through criminal prosecution for internationally wrongful acts. Scholars too have insisted that the international system’s embrace of accountability excludes or renders illegal the granting of amnesty. This Article argues that that position is too narrow and uses the ongoing conflict in Syria, as well as other contemporary examples, to examine some of consequences of the clamor for prosecution.

The Article rejects the binary juxtaposition of amnesty and accountability in current international legal scholarship, and instead seeks to broaden the terms of the conversation by …

From The Exile Files: An Essay On Trading Justice For Peace, Michael P. Scharf

Faculty Publications

In the spring and summer of 2003, the United States offered exile in lieu of invasion and prosecution to two rogue leaders accused of committing international crimes - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (who declined) and Liberian President Charles Taylor (who accepted). In this essay, the author argues that the offer to Hussein was inappropriate, as it violated international treaties requiring prosecution, but that the offer to Taylor was permissible under international law. The essay examines the costs and benefits of amnesty and exile-for-peace deals and the limited nature of the international duty to prosecute. Where the duty to prosecute does …

The Amnesty Exception To The Jurisdiction Of The International Criminal Court, Michael P. Scharf

Faculty Publications

This article examines the paradoxical question of whether the International Criminal Court will require justice at the expense of peace. Notwithstanding the popular catch phrase of the 1990s - "no peace without justice"' - peace and justice are sometimes incompatible goals. To end an international or internal conflict, negotiations must often be conducted with the very leaders who were responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity. When this is the case, insisting on criminal prosecutions can prolong the conflict, resulting in more death, destruction, and human suffering.