Hirsh, David (2001) The coming of age of cosmopolitan law : crimes against humanity and their prosecution. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.

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Abstract

In the era of globalization many writers (e.g. Hannah Arendt, David Held,
Robert Fine) have argued that the ideology of nationalism is being
challenged by the growth of cosmopolitan developments, ideas and
institutions. This thesis takes off from the evolution of 'cosmopolitan
criminal law' out of international law. It argues that implicit in the
elaboration and use of the 'crimes against humanity' charge at Nuremberg
and at the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals for Yugoslavia and
Rwanda (ICTY and ICTR), is the admission that genocide and ethnic
cleansing are the business of the whole of humanity and that perpetrators
may no longer hide behind the principle of national sovereignty. I
argue that the establishment of the principle of individual criminal
responsibility for such crimes is not simply a legal fiction. I further argue
that the greatly expanded role for short-term instrumental rationality which
prevails in modem society (e.g.Zygmunt Bauman) does not limit social
actors to a choice of either complicity in or a stepping out of society. The
evidence shows that perpetrators do make choices for which they may be
held responsible and are not simply puppets of rational structures. The
thesis looks at three responses made by the international community to
ethnic cleansing in the former Yugoslavia: the peace at all costs policy,
which allowed ethnic cleansing to go unhindered in Bosnia; the bombing
policy which failed to stop but reversed some of the effects of ethnic
cleansing in Kosovo; and the establishment of the ICTY which is judging
some of the perpetrators. I use the trials of Dusko Tadic and of Tihomir
Blaskic as case studies to investigate the working of the first international
criminal tribunal. I also investigate the trial of Andrei Sawoniuk, held in
London in 1999, for his actions during the Holocaust in Belarus, and the
libel trial in which David Irving sued Deborah Lipstadt. Using these four
cases, I examine the functioning of cosmopolitan criminal trials, the
different contexts in which they are held, their use of evidence and law,
the extent and limits of the justice they achieve, and their role in the
production of authoritative cosmopolitan narratives.

Item Type:	Thesis or Dissertation (PhD)
Subjects:	K Law [LC] > K Law (General) K Law [Moys] > KC International Law
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH):	Crimes against humanity, International crimes , Criminal law, International law, Genocide
Official Date:	10 April 2001
Dates:	Date Event 10 April 2001 Submitted
Institution:	University of Warwick
Theses Department:	Department of Sociology
Thesis Type:	PhD
Publication Status:	Unpublished
Supervisor(s)/Advisor:	Fine, Robert, 1945-
Extent:	275 leaves
Language:	eng

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