International Law and Transitional Justice
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The body of principles, customs, and rules regulating interactions among and between states, international organizations, individuals, and in more limited cases, multinational organizations.
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The legal principle that the state must respect in full the rights of the individual within the legal system, allowing judges to define matters of fundamental fairness and justice.
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A set of related ideas in secular or religious thought, usually founded on identifiable thinkers and their works, that provides a coherent legal framework.
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The notion that official diplomatic emissaries of a sovereign state are to be largely immune from prosecution under the laws and procedures of the foreign country to which they are dispatched.
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Referral of an ongoing dispute to an impartial third-party tribunal (either a board of arbitrators or a standing court) for a binding legal decision.
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From the Latin as just right to wage war; the primary decision-law of just war theory that is intended to provide the minimal moral and legal criteria necessary to justify a resort to war.
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From the Latin as justice in war; theory that is intended to provide the minimal moral and legal criteria necessary to govern proper conduct in war.
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Serves as the primary judicial organ of the UN and is headquartered in The Hague (Netherlands). Consisting of 15 judges serving rotating nine-year terms, its main function is to settle international legal disputes and to provide advisory opinions on legal matters.
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The first permanent global tribunal established to try individuals for war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and crimes of aggression.
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The notion that a persons conduct as the head of state or a high-ranking political official renders that person above the law and not culpable for any criminal activity carried out in the dispatch of his or her responsibilities.
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A states acceptance of the authority of an international tribunal, thereby creating an obligation for that state to abide by tribunal decisions.
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Can include murder, extermination, torture, rape, and other inhumane acts. These are not isolated events but rather official government policy or a systematic practice tolerated or condoned by a government or de facto political authority.