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International justice

International criminal justice exists to ensure that impunity is never an option. Civitas Maxima works to make that a reality for the most serious crimes committed anywhere in the world.

What is international criminal justice?

International criminal justice seeks to investigate and prosecute the most serious international crimes: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and crimes of aggression. When a state on whose territory such crimes were committed is unable—or unwilling—to prosecute those responsible, international justice mechanisms may be activated to ensure that impunity is not an option.

Civitas Maxima’s approach: supporting national justice for international crimes

Civitas Maxima works to ensure that international crimes can be prosecuted before national courts, particularly where justice has failed or is ineffective in the country where the crimes were committed, or where international mechanisms are unable to deliver justice. We primarily work on cases brought in third countries—that is, outside the territory where the crimes occurred.

Such cases may be based on different jurisdictional grounds, depending on the national legislation concerned. These may include active jurisdiction (where the suspect is a national of the state conducting the proceedings), passive jurisdiction (where the victims are nationals of that state), or universal jurisdiction, which allows certain international crimes to be prosecuted even in the absence of any link of nationality or territory.

Depending on the legal system, universal jurisdiction may be:

  • Absolute, allowing the state to prosecute without any connecting factor; or
  • Conditional, allowing prosecution only if certain requirements are met, in particular the presence or habitual residence of the suspect on the state’s territory.

Delivering justice where it is absent

Justice mechanisms based on extraterritorial jurisdiction—still too rarely used—are now expanding rapidly, particularly in Europe. They demonstrate that it is possible to deliver justice for the most serious crimes, even many years after the events and across borders.

Civitas Maxima plays a central role in this process. We document international crimes in close collaboration with our local partners; we support investigations; and, when conditions are met, we contribute to the opening of judicial proceedings before competent national courts.

Our work extends further. It is grounded in a victim-centered approach, with particular attention to those who have been forgotten or excluded from traditional justice mechanisms. We work to ensure that their stories are acknowledged, that they gain access to truth, and that they are able to obtain justice and reparation, including symbolic recognition of their suffering. More broadly, our efforts also contribute to preventing the recurrence of such atrocities. Through our combined work, perpetrators of war crimes or crimes against humanity have been identified, prosecuted, and in some cases convicted.

International criminal justice can be exercised through various mechanisms, whether international, hybrid, or national:

  • The International Criminal Court (ICC), based in The Hague, may exercise jurisdiction in limited circumstances, notably when the crime was committed on the territory of a State Party to the 1998 Rome Statute, when the alleged perpetrator is a national of such a state, or following a referral by the United Nations Security Council.
  • Ad hoc international criminal tribunals, established for specific situations, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY, 1993–2017) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR, 1994–2015).
  • Hybrid or mixed courts, which combine elements of national and international law and/or have a mixed composition of national and international judges. Examples include the Special Court for Sierra Leone (2002–2013) and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.
  • National courts, which may also prosecute alleged perpetrators of international crimes under their domestic law, on the basis of various forms of extraterritorial jurisdiction.

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