About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

4 Int'l Crim. L. Rev. 1 (2004)

handle is hein.journals/intcrimlrb4 and id is 1 raw text is: International Criminal Law Review 4: 1-63, 2004. © 2004 Koninklijke Brill NV Printed in the Netherlands. From the destruction of the Twin Buddhas to the destruction of the Twin Towers: Crimes against civilisation under the ICC Statute HIRAD ABTAHP We perceive that a civilisation is as fragile as a life ... Paul Val6ry I. Introduction As the United Nations' Year of Dialogue Among Civilisations,' 2001 wit- nessed the destruction of monuments such as the Buddhas of Bamiyan and the World Trade Center. While the Twin Buddhas were over seventeen centuries old, and the Twin Towers were less than thirty years old, both reflected mani- festations of civilisations. Both were also hit by a wave of trans-continental violence spread out by a ruling faction - the Taleban - and a nebulous organisation - Al Qaeda - which used Afghanistan as their territorial basis. From the mid-1990s onwards, as this paper will argue, the lengthy in- teraction of these two entities favoured the conceptualisation of their ideal world, degenerating into a pathological reaction against various civilisations, the West being only one of them.2 Accordingly, the September 11 events were in fact the foreseeable consequence of a pattern of criminal conduct, which found its roots in the type of regime that the Taleban/Al Qaeda nexus had created. Thus viewed, the crimes of September 11 were in fact committed by * Diplome d'ttudes Approfondies de Droit International, Robert Schuman University, Strasbourg, France; Deputy Chef de Cabinet, Presidency, International Criminal Court (ICC); former Associate Legal Officer, Chambers, International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), The Hague, The Netherlands. The views expressed in this article are those of the author in his personal capacity and not necessarily those of the ICC, the ICTY or of the United Nations. The author would like to express his gratitude to Dr. James J. Busuttil, Courtney Musser, Cristina Posa and Dr. Donatella Toracca for their invaluable intellectual input. 1 United Nations Year of Dialogue among Civilisations, G.A. Res. 53/22 (16 November 1998). 2 For the link between the Taleban and Al Qaeda, see Sections II. A. 1., III. A. 3. b. and IV., infra.

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most