Universal justice: analysis by Judge Morrison from the ICC during CUMIPAZ 2016
The judge of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in Europe, Howard Morrison, spoke on the “Challenges of universal justice for a globalized world; Independence, autonomy and efficiency”, during the Peace Integration Summit – CUMIPAZ 2016 which held its second edition in Paraguay.
Morrison centered his analysis on International Law, emphasizing that it should be a guard against human rights violations; at the same time, establish the principles and standards that are required for States that are applying the correct jurisprudence.
He also stated that the Court is complementary and at first instance, national justice should be served.
“We cannot separate international law from politics; that is a general topic, if you are working with one, you also have to prove with the other,” he stated.
The judge commented on the recent measure announced by the ICC, regarding the competence of the organism to judge environmental crimes as crimes against humanity, among these, land grabbing or the illegal exploitation of recourses by private or governmental companies.
“We have seen that the International Criminal Court has adopted the concept of environmental crimes, and we seek to reach the level of crimes against humanity,” he assured.
During his analysis, Morrison indicated that law has been more focused on punishment than it has been on prevention, in this sense, he explained that International Law takes on greater importance in the power to stop the abuses, rather than just trying to accuse individuals.
“The Rome Statute is not perfect, the International Court is not perfect, but it is the foundation for judging and formulating international humanitarian laws,” he said.
GLOBALIZATION
In his dissertation, he discussed the topic of globalization, mentioning the global factors that accelerate the process of wars in a growing population: climate change, damage to the environment, global warming and planet contamination.
He spoke about the international globalized community, which he indicated, had some flaws when responding to security threats in their environment and explained that one of the reasons for this is that the mechanisms used to respond to this situation, are slow or reluctant to implement policies.
He said that is important to get more countries to join the Court to support these global themes; he stated that the United States, Russia, People's Republic of China, India and Israel, that are still not members of the Board, they are recognized, but they do not form part of the table.
(Listen to conference)
