Katharina Neureiter joins JiC for this fascinating glimpse into the historical roots of the ICC. Katharina based on her Dissertation on Gustave Moynier’s proposal for an international criminal court. Katharina works as a journalist and consultant and blogs at www.hearabout.wordpress.com.
Stamp from Monaco depicting Gustave Moynier (l), Henri Dunant, and General Henri Dufour.
The historian Mark Mazower concluded in his recent book that “we have moved from an era that had faith in the idea of international institutions to one that has lost it.” He examines the nineteenth century as a starting point to the evolution of our present day international institutions, but largely omits the International Criminal Court (ICC). However, it is the successfully operating institution of the ICC that could turn his conclusion on its head. But where did this all start and how did this nineteenth century ‘era of faith’, figure in the history of the ICC?
In writing the history of the ICC one has to carefully distinguish between its operations and ideas. The legal bedrock of the court is its concept of individual responsibility for war crimes. This was first pioneered in the Nuremberg Trials 1945 and thus makes the court itself a distinctly modern and post-WWII phenomena. The idea of an international criminal law regime, however, goes back centuries. In this regard the Coalition for the International Criminal Court writes:
“The ‘road to Rome’ was a long and often contentious one. While efforts to create a global criminal court can be traced back to the early 19th century the story began in earnest in 1872 with Gustave Moynier – one of the founders of the International Committee of the Red Cross – who proposed a permanent court in response to the crimes of the Franco-Prussian War.”
Gustave Moynier was a distinguished lawyer from Geneva and founding member of the Institut de droit international, an independent forum of the most famous legal practitioners from around the world. Portraying Moynier as the ‘mastermind’ of the ICC stretches the historical record slightly as his proposed tribunal was rather limited in scope. Nevertheless, Monyier’s zeal for creating a just world guided by the rule of law certainly deserves its place in the history of international tribunals. Let me briefly carry you off into Moynier’s world: the Geneva of the mid-nineteenth century, where belief had it that enthusiasm, optimism and humanitarian ideas could change the world.
Moynier and the Geneva Convention 1864
Moynier belonged to a class of fortunate individuals who could live their lives far from monetary constraints. Living from his father’s fortune as a clockmaker, Moynier spent his days pursuing his passion for the law and philanthropy. He was an energetic activist producing numerous books, pamphlets and folders of correspondence on various topics ranging from the laws of war to geography in the Congo Basin. The direction of his work changed when he encountered Henry Dunant and his manifest: ‘A memory of Solferino’ in 1859. The small booklet details Dunant’s feelings towards the dying soldiers on the French battlefields and enshrines his vision for an international organisation dedicated to the alleviation of suffering for wounded combatants in the spirit of universal brotherhood. Moynier was hooked and organised, with Dunant and other influential benefactors, a conference which ultimately lead to the first Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded in Armies in the Field, signed in 1864 by twelve European states. The conference also secured support for the establishment of what eventually became known as the International Committee of the Red Cross.
“Law and truth have no bounds” – The origins of international law and tribunals
The mid-nineteenth century witnessed a radical breach with legal traditions. The law of nations started to shift gradually from a Eurocentric to an international focus – although the overwhelming majority of publications were nevertheless produced by Europeans or men from European decent. The French Lawyer Edouard Laboulaye, for example, wrote in 1875: “Law and truth have no bounds, we never think to ask one another if we speak the same language of if we belong to the same country.”This was facilitated by an intensified exchange of liberal ideas and social concepts through the inventions of the telegraph, railway and extended postal connections. Moynier, for instance, frequently conversed with learned men from all over Europe, Argentina, Japan, China and America. Continue reading
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