By Otto Spijkers

The Hague presents itself as the city of Peace, justice and Security. With the proliferation of international courts and tribunals in The Hague, it seems almost impossible to keep up with all the legal developments (or lack thereof: yesterday we celebrated the 12th anniversary of the indictment against Mladi? and Karad?i?, both still at large). Fortunately, there’s the Hague Justice Portal, which keeps us up to date on all the developments. One of these developments is the acquirement of a new criminal tribunal: the Hariri Tribunal. After the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the Iran-US Claims Tribunal (see picture, taken from the Tribunal’s somewhat disappointing website), the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the International Criminal Court, it seems that the Hariri Tribunal will also be located in The Hague (perhaps the ICC can play host, as it does for the Special Court for Sierra Leone in the Taylor case). For those interested in visiting all these institutions, the city of The Hague published a booklet: ‘A walking tour of the (inter)national legal institutions in The Hague’. The Hariri Tribunal was established by the Security Council to try suspects in the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri (see picture). Annexed to the relevant Security Council resolution, one can find the agreement between the United Nations and the Lebanese Republic on the establishment of a Special Tribunal for Lebanon and the Statute of that Tribunal. According to Article 1 of the latter document, the jurisdiction is as follows:

The Special Tribunal shall have jurisdiction over persons responsible for the attack of 14 February 2005 resulting in the death of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and in the death or injury of other persons. If the Tribunal finds that other attacks that occurred in Lebanon between 1 October 2004 and 12 December 2005, or any later date decided by the Parties and with the consent of the Security Council, are connected in accordance with the principles of criminal justice and are of a nature and gravity similar to the attack of 14 February 2005, it shall also have jurisdiction over persons responsible for such attacks. This connection includes but is not limited to a combination of the following elements: criminal intent (motive), the purpose behind the attacks, the nature of the victims targeted, the pattern of the attacks (modus operandi) and the perpetrators.

Interesting also is the applicable law (Article 2):

(a) The provisions of the Lebanese Criminal Code relating to the prosecution and punishment of acts of terrorism, crimes and offences against life and personal integrity, illicit associations and failure to report crimes and offences, including the rules regarding the material elements of a crime, criminal participation and conspiracy; and (b) Articles 6 and 7 of the Lebanese law of 11 January 1958 on "Increasing the penalties for sedition, civil war and interfaith struggle".

There does not seem to be all that much international law involved here. The Tribunal will try those individually responsible for crimes within the jurisdiction of the Special Tribunal, and their superiors. According to the Statute, "a superior shall be criminally responsible for any of the crimes set forth in article 2 of this Statute committed by subordinates under his or her effective authority and control, as a result of his or her failure to exercise control properly over such subordinates" (Article 3). That is interesting, because it opens doors to prosecutions of those behind the scenes. – Otto