A Study Of the LegAL frAmewOrk fOr AccountAbility of individuAls for crimes AgAinst Humanity and tHe Role of tHe inteRnational law EnforcEmEnt AgEnciEs

Abstract

The principle that individuals are and can be held criminally accountable for violations of newlinethe laws of war dates back to many years. However, it was only after World War II and newlinethe Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, set up to judge those German and Japanese military newlineleaders accused of serious crimes during the war, that the idea of individual criminal newlineresponsibility for serious breaches of international law gained ground. In this thesis an newlineattempt has made to trace the evolution of individual s responsibility for crime against newlinehumanity, the present legal framework in national and international level and the role of newlinevarious law enforcement agencies to deal with the problem. newlineEvolution of the Problem: newlineHistory is witness to the fact that wherever an individual or groups of individuals have newlinebecome powerful, they have flagrantly tortured the weak and the defenseless. Even where newlinepower is legitimated and turned into a legally valid authority, abuse of power and torture newlineof the weak and the defenseless has continued. In this back drop considerable legal newlinemechanism has developed for the exercise of such raw power. newlineAn international crime has been broadly defined as an act universally recognized as newlinecriminal, that is, an act that is considered a grave matter of international concern and for newlinesome valid reason cannot be left within the exclusive jurisdiction of the state that would newlinehave control over it under ordinary circumstances . Crimes against humanity now are newlineestablished as jus cogens norms and are implicitly recognized as such in the preamble of newlinethe Hague Convention, which served to codify the customary law of armed conflict. newlineUnfortunately, despite several attempts for fixing liability to the individuals who have newlinecommitted crime against humanity and subjecting them to trials like Nuremberg trials and newlineTokyo trials the legal framework for fixing liability to individuals guilty of the act of newlinecommitting crime against humanity to this day remains obscure and vague and ad hoc newlinemechanisms are used to settle such cases. newlineIn the face of re