The Legality of Amnesty Laws for Jus Cogens Crimes Under the Norms of Jus Cogens
Undergraduate Thesis, submitted and defended before the Board of Examiners, Department of International Law, Faculty of Law, Universitas Gadjah Mada (Indonesia), as required to obtain the Sarjana Hukum (LL.B. equivalent) degree.
229 Pages Posted: 17 Dec 2017 Last revised: 17 Feb 2019
Date Written: June 21, 2012
Abstract
Amnesty lawss are passed to bargain the law in attempt of achieving the greater need of peace during or post conflict. Amnesty laws for Jus Cogens crimes, however, have been highly criticized and mostly not recognized or overruled due to the obligation to prosecute as consequence of the Jus Cogens status. Some jurists agree that some exceptions can be made for imperative necessities to achieve peace. However, it is not clear whether such obligations per se have achieved the status of Jus Cogens. If it has, then the only way to derogate such obligations via amnesty laws is to prove that the aforementioned exceptional situations has also raised to the status of Jus Cogens – which most (if not all) jurists have not done. This legal writing will elaborate why the obligations to prosecute is in itself a Jus Cogens norm, and how the aforementioned exceptional situation also constitute as a compelling necessity which has achieved the status of Jus Cogens and therefore can legally derogate the former.
Keywords: Amnesty, Jus Cogens, International Crimes, Erga Omnes
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