Towards global justice in the 21st century?

The aim of this paper is to highlight the broader significance of developments in international justice

In his Millennium Report, Kofi Annan, the United Nations Secretary-General, urged member states to "strive to end the culture of impunity" in the new millennium. Abolishing this culture, which has permitted international actors to flout fundamental norms without fear of punishment, is arguably humanity’s greatest challenge in the 21st century. Atrocities committed in Rwanda and Yugoslavia are a reminder of the extent to which this culture persists despite the efforts of the UN and its agencies, human rights organisations, non- governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society to put an end to gross human rights violations.

The aim of this paper is to highlight the broader significance of developments in international justice, with specific focus on the impetus given to the creation of further specialised criminal tribunals to prosecute those who allegedly violated international humanitarian law in Sierra Leone, Cambodia and East Timor. There are still some significant obstacles in the path of these proposed tribunals, which are briefly discussed in this paper before making some concluding comments on the perceived move towards global justice.

About the author

Phenyo Keiseng Rakate (LLM) joined the Peace Missions Programme at the Institute for Security Studies as a researcher in the Training for Peace Project in January 2001. In 1998, he was appointed as a law clerk in the Office of the Public Prosecutor (OTP) of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. In 1999, he took up a position as a lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, and was a visiting research fellow at the Max-Planck Institute for International and Comparative Public Law in Heidelberg, Germany, in 2000. Phenyo has published a number of articles on constitutional law, international humanitarian law and transitional justice in international and South African academic journals.