Justice and international justice progress

Justice is the ideal, morally correct state of things and persons. For many, justice is overwhelmingly important: "Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought." For many, it has not been achieved: "We do not live in a just world."

Some may picture justice as a virtue — a property of people, and only derivatively of their actions and the institutions they create — or as a property of actions or institutions, and only derivatively of the people who bring them about. The source of justice may be thought to be harmony, divine command, natural law, or human creation, or it may be thought to be subordinate to a more central ethical standard. The demands of justice are pressing in two areas, distribution and retribution. Distributive justice may require equality, giving people what they deserve, maximising benefit to the worst off, protecting whatever comes about in the right way, or maximising total welfare. Retributive justice may require backward-looking retaliation, or forward-looking use of punishment for the sake of its consequences. Ideals of justice must be put into practice by institutions, which raise their own questions of legitimacy, procedure, codification and interpretation.

The International Justice Program works to promote justice and accountability for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity in countries where national courts are unable or unwilling to do so. The program monitors the work of the International Criminal Court, the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Sarajevo War Crimes Chamber. It follows developments at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. It also looks at the efforts of national courts, including in Iraq, Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The International Justice Program supports the efforts of national courts to use their country’s universal jurisdiction legislation to try those charged with the most serious crimes under international law.

Progress made in the international justice

2005 saw some significant developments towards bringing to justice those responsible for crimes under international law, including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, torture, extrajudicial executions and enforced disappearances. However, there was also continuing widespread impunity in national courts in the states where crimes were committed, as well as only limited use of universal jurisdiction by courts in other states.

In October, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced its first ever arrest warrants for five leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed in northern Uganda. AI called on the ICC and the Ugandan government to ensure that tens of thousands of other crimes committed during the conflict were investigated and prosecuted, including crimes by government forces. AI urged the Ugandan government to repeal an amnesty law which prevents Ugandan courts from addressing these crimes.

The ICC continued to investigate crimes committed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but did not issue any arrest warrants during 2005. It also undertook preliminary analyses of eight other situations. However, the President and Prosecutor of the ICC suggested that resource constraints would limit its ability to undertake any new investigations until the current ones were completed.