Chapter 2 • The Major Universal Human Rights Instruments and the Mechanisms for Their Implementation The Genocide Convention was thus an important confirmation of the principle spelled out in the Nuremberg Charter that in some cases individuals have international responsibility under international law which transcends partisan national interests and obligations of obedience. 2.4.3 International crimes: recent legal developments The principle of individual criminal responsibility for particularly serious acts was given new life when the Security Council decided, by resolution 808 (1993), “that an international tribunal shall be established for the prosecution of persons responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991”. By resolution 827 (1993), the Security Council next approved the Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). As amended in 1998, the Statute empowers the Tribunal to prosecute grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions of 1949, violations of the laws and customs of war, genocide, and crimes against humanity, namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, imprisonment, torture, rape, persecutions on political, racial and religious grounds, as well as “other inhumane acts” – a legal definition of crime that allows the Tribunal to consider also other kinds of large-scale human rights abuses not specifically listed in the Statute (arts. 1-5). The International Tribunal and the national courts have concurrent jurisdiction over the relevant crimes, although the former “shall have primacy over” the latter (art. 9 of the ICTY Statute). In order to deal with the serious violations of humanitarian law committed in Rwanda between 1 January and 31 December 1994, the Security Council similarly created the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) by resolution 955 (1994). The Statute of the Tribunal was adopted by that same resolution. The Tribunal has the power to prosecute persons having committed the following crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity of the same kind as those listed above with regard to the ICTY, as well as violations of article 3 common to the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and of Additional Protocol II (arts. 2-4 of the ICTR Statute). It may also deal with the prosecution of these crimes committed by Rwandan citizens in the territory of neighbouring States (art. 7 of the Statute). The difference between the prosecution powers of the two Tribunals is due to the fact that the war in the former Yugoslavia was considered to be an armed conflict of an international character, whilst the crisis situation in Rwanda was principally a non-international armed conflict. Lastly, on 17 July 1998, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court was adopted by the United Nations Conference of Plenipotentiaries by a non-recorded vote of 120 to 7 with 21 abstentions.52 The establishment of this international, permanent and independent judicial body was to end impunity for acts of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and, on certain conditions, the crime of aggression (art. 5 of the Statute). The Court will be competent to try natural persons irrespective of 52 See the following web site: http://www.icj.org/icc/iccdoc/mficc.htm, p. 1. For the text of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, see UN doc. A/CONF.183/9. Human Rights in the Administration of Justice: A Manual on Human Rights for Judges, Prosecutors and Lawyers 49