Victims’ Right to Justice, Immunities and New Avenues for International Criminal Justice

Abstract

On account of the immunities which foreign State officials enjoy under international law, universal jurisdiction trials fail to offer justice to victims of crimes orchestrated by State authorities. The ICC Appeals Chamber has affirmed that immunities are inapplicable before international courts as no customary rule providing immunities before international courts has taken shape. While plausible, a critical assessment should still be made of which features an international court should have to be genuinely distinguishable from domestic courts, and thereby not be concerned with immunities. In this paper, it is argued that, unlike domestic courts, certain international criminal courts may be expressly endorsed by the international community as organs which may restore peaceful relations between and among states – the very rationale underlying personal immunity – and, as such, provide victims with access to justice.