International standards to put an end to the phenomenon of impunity between reality and practice

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Abstract

The mechanisms put in place by international law to monitor and sanction those responsible for violations of human rights and international humanitarian law are based on a legal basis according to which the official status of the perpetrators of crimes is not a reason to exonerate them from criminal liability, regardless of their legal status, the nature of the acts they issued and the type of jurisdiction which initiated proceedings against them.

 In accordance with this logic, many international initiatives have been launched to build a legal system on which States and international organizations could rely to put an end to the phenomenon of impunity, in particular before and after the end of the Second World War, until the creation of the International Criminal Court in Rome and the entry into force of its rules of procedure, which did not prevent it from resorting again to international mechanisms in order to ensure impunity for the perpetrators of international crimes, such as the international handling of the Yemeni crisis, which was described as another example added to the dictionary of impunity.