Topic: Universal Jurisdiction in Crimes against Humanity
Country: Spain
Delegate Name: Tristen Mejias-Thompson
School: Fishers High School
Topic page: background guide and all position papers All Spain position papers GLIMUN 2011 committees
Being a free state with democratic principles, the Kingdom of Spain has no problem with crimes against humanity. However, there are many states where this is not the case. This issue is too serious to worry about infringing on popular soveirgnty.
Spain has been involved in mutliple international cases involving crimes against humanity, and believes very strongly that some acts are too vile to observe laws of countries protecting these criminals from answering for their actions.
Crimes against humanity are as their name suggests; too broad to be governed by a single country’s laws. They need to be punished by international laws agreed upon by all countries. These acts deserve retribution of a most severe kind, and cannot be lessened or pardoned by a corrupt or flawed government. To be sure, people cannot be accused of this for any crime, nor should other sins merit international court justice and thereby infringing on national soveirngty.
Acts vile in nature and devastating in consequence merit special, solemn attention. According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, crimes against humanity "are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings. They are not isolated or sporadic events, but are part either of a government policy…” Spain sees the distinction in isolated incidents and government or organizational crime. This is why Spain has taken action in several international Nazi crime cases, because it was “grave humiliation” directed against a specific ethnicity by a government. While the kindom of Spain recognizes that Germany is compleatley different today and would never repeat such actions, the individuals who participated in these crimes need to answer for their crimes.
How then, can a government objectively and fairly punish the criminals if they are the criminals? International Courts must have jurisdiction if we want the world to be free of places where events like the holocost can occur unpunished. The issue behind the ICC (International Crime Court) is the lack of authority. They can only persecute criminals delivered to them by member nations, but nations comminting crimes against humanity would not likely be member nations, rendering the court almost useless. However, the United Nations can hand cases over to them, giving them a much broader jurisdiction.
As the Legal Comitee, Spain feels that we should be dedicated to locating and apprehending governments who are condoning or committing crimes against humanity. For, if we do not do this, there is no one to protect oppressed citizens from cruel governements and harsh regimes. Popular soveirgnty is not worth the lives of the people, especially when ruled by an authoritarian government.
