Leicester Peace Talks 2018/19: Incitement to Hatred: Hate Propaganda and the Preventive Function of the International Criminal Courts and Tribunals

Wednesday, 5 December 2018, 4.45 (tea) for 5 pm  (talk), room TBC

Fielding Johnson Building, room L67 (second floor)

Public Seminar:

Incitement to Hatred: Hate Propaganda and the Preventive Function of the International Criminal Courts and Tribunals

Prof Mohamed Badar (Northumbria School of Law)

In the resolution creating the ICTY, the Security Council cited its determination not only to deter further atrocities but also ‘to take effective measures to bring to justice the persons who are responsible for them.”[1] In the ICTY’s first annual report to the UN General Assembly and Security Council, then ICTY President Antonio Cassese described this aim with elegant simplicity—“to do justice.”[2] Judgments such as the one rendered by the Trial Chamber in Šešelj fail miserably this mission. Received by the affected communities with utter shock, a disappointment in the tribunal and a deep sense of insult, the judgment essentially declared one of the biggest war propagandists of the Balkan wars in the 1990s innocent on all grounds of the indictment. On the other hand from a deterrence point of view a signal has been sent that as long as you are clever enough about your hate propaganda you remain untouchable by the law. Unsurprisingly the judgment received an epilogue at the Appeal Chamber, which substantially reversed its findings, however not to a sufficient extent. Apart from the failure of the Chambers themselves, one can also observe an essentially problematic applicable law when it comes to questions of hate propaganda during armed conflicts and the dilemma encountered by international criminal courts and tribunals in attributing responsibility of international crimes to hate propagandists.  

All welcome!

Attendance is free but please register if you can: celi@le.ac.uk

A campus map can be found at https://www.le.ac.uk/maps/documents/uol.pdf

Please check our website for up-to-date information before you travels.https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/law/research/celi/

For further information or to be informed about further events, please email us at celi@le.ac.uk.  

Information about all our events can be found at www.le.ac.uk/law/research/celi