Abstract:

Professors Caracciolo, Letteval, and Loyer will co-author this paper. They are part of a consortium of universities which submitted in April 2010 a project for an joint Erasmus Mundus doctorate called "Geopolitics in Europe." Applicants to the program will be trained to use a research methodology developed jointly by the professors of the six partner universities to study the genesis and development of different types of conflicts in Europe. The multidisciplinary teaching and coaching is the originality of the project. This paper is part of this innovative multidiscplinary trend on the question about the geopolitical aspect of the concept of "crimen iuris gentium" through two examples: 1) the ICC Rome statute and 2) The case of judge Garzon in Spain

Genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and crimes of agression are within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. In 1998, the Rome Statute allowed the ICC to prosecute individuals for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by states, in place of the national courts. On June 11, 2010, a Conference about the Rome Statute has finally defined what was « aggression » in the case of states. It stipulted that the Court could concretely exercise its jurisdiction over this crime. This decision was unexpected because the permanent members of the Security Council defended its prerogative to order ICC investigations over such a crime.
This result can be interpreted as a victory of justice over diplomacy. It is howewer difficult to assess the consequences of this vote will not take effect until 2017. Yet the decision raises interesting questions about the content of the negotiations that led to this victory and the arguments used by countries which defended judicial power over political power. What are the conflicts and types of agression that have founded their arguments? Israel Palestine? Iraq / Iran? Ethiopia / Somalia? Afghanistan /
This decision also raises a debate over the efficiency of justice to ward off the specter of new attacks and new crimes against humanity. The basic idea is that the behavior of some states violates human rights in such a way that they should be punished by international law to ensure the efficiency of the prosecution. But does the efficiency of the trial ensures future peace? Have the Nuremberg Trials been crucial to banish the idea of a war of conquest in Germany?
The question of the capacity of justice to bring peace is based on the dictates of natural law and also arose in Spain about the eviction of Judge Garzon in June 2010, after he tried to demonstrate that the 1977 amnesty did not apply to crimes of Franco’s army. The decision about Spain raised once again the question of the capacity of justice to resolve geopolitical conflicts within nations or between states.
Such reflection is at the crossroads of several disciplines: positive law and natural law, philosophy, history and geopolitics to understand the political contexts of judicial decisions and the way they are perceived abroad and in the States involved.

Keywords:

Geopolitics, law, Spain, International Criminal Court, nation.