1 00:00:01,260 --> 00:00:09,900 Hello, everyone. Good afternoon or good morning for those who like me are in their home countries. 2 00:00:09,900 --> 00:00:15,150 I would first like to thank you for joining them, getting ready for the invitation. 3 00:00:15,150 --> 00:00:23,250 I'm very glad to do my grunty view. And I'll teach ya by doing by presenting a seminar. 4 00:00:23,250 --> 00:00:38,760 I will now start sharing my screen with you. Because I have some slides to share, point second. 5 00:00:38,760 --> 00:00:48,120 So here we are. Well, I will initially start by giving you a bit of introduction on on the background of this research. 6 00:00:48,120 --> 00:00:52,500 Political crimes and this scope and limitations to transitional transitions, 7 00:00:52,500 --> 00:00:59,080 to democracy as part of a bigger project that I come to at the University of Maastricht there. 8 00:00:59,080 --> 00:01:06,150 I see. I work on the topics of political crime. I analyse them through the lenses of extradition and of amnesties. 9 00:01:06,150 --> 00:01:13,960 Also by conducting some empirical quantitative research on the cases of Brazil and South Africa. 10 00:01:13,960 --> 00:01:25,290 Currently, I came to Oxford and joined the Latin American Centre to do the empirical analytical part concerning the Brazilian case. 11 00:01:25,290 --> 00:01:29,430 What I will present to you today, though, is part of the first phase of my research, 12 00:01:29,430 --> 00:01:39,860 where I do a more doctrinal research on the relationship between amnesties and political crimes, hence political crimes as well. 13 00:01:39,860 --> 00:01:51,150 And amnesties is a work in progress. And as you might probably see, I still have some open questions in my mind that I plan to share with you today. 14 00:01:51,150 --> 00:01:58,050 So before I jump into topic, I will give you a bit more of structure on what I plan to say. 15 00:01:58,050 --> 00:02:04,140 The first the starting point of my presentation will be to address to explain the 16 00:02:04,140 --> 00:02:10,830 motivations as to why I decided to analyse political crimes in the context of amnesties. 17 00:02:10,830 --> 00:02:17,970 Why is this relevant, relevant question critically? Secondly, I will present a definition of amnesty that I use. 18 00:02:17,970 --> 00:02:27,000 I will describe the procedural aspects of amnesties and bring an attempt to present different and fresh analysis rationales involved in 19 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:41,620 it and relating these rationalities rationalities to the interests of the subject that are involved in the amnesty decision process. 20 00:02:41,620 --> 00:02:46,900 Finally, I get to watch crime scan figure as the material scope of amnesty, 21 00:02:46,900 --> 00:02:51,850 and then I analyse the relationship between Amnesty's and political crimes. 22 00:02:51,850 --> 00:02:59,080 By doing so, I aim to demonstrate the gaps in the amnesty literature concerning political crimes, 23 00:02:59,080 --> 00:03:03,850 despite their relevance as object of amnesty as well. 24 00:03:03,850 --> 00:03:10,510 I'm trying to pinpoint aspects of amnesties that might affect the concept of political crimes. 25 00:03:10,510 --> 00:03:15,070 Finally, I arrived to one amnesty laws label as political crimes, 26 00:03:15,070 --> 00:03:25,630 and I attempt to design the elements of crime that are present and political crimes being political crime, a crime as then as the label would say. 27 00:03:25,630 --> 00:03:32,350 The final objective is to analyse them as a normative rather than a political than a political category. 28 00:03:32,350 --> 00:03:40,450 And with this, I would I would like to highlight that when I talk when I go to this parallel between normative and political concept, 29 00:03:40,450 --> 00:03:47,110 it's because amnesties tend to be mostly guided by political concerns rather than legal aspects, 30 00:03:47,110 --> 00:03:54,670 which does not mean that the normative standards are not applicable and should not be applicable. 31 00:03:54,670 --> 00:04:06,160 One of them raised, one of them raised by me is as a model where rule of law is the final goal of Amnesty's. 32 00:04:06,160 --> 00:04:14,710 And with this, I aim to limit the discretion. That's things usually have in granting amnesties. 33 00:04:14,710 --> 00:04:20,600 Hands. According to two, two, two, two, the thoughts that I will present to you today. 34 00:04:20,600 --> 00:04:28,850 The normative backdrop is not only beneficial because it gives a bit more of security and structures to the amnesty procedure, 35 00:04:28,850 --> 00:04:35,630 but also is necessary to delay, imitate, to imitate states. 36 00:04:35,630 --> 00:04:48,610 Why then do I investigate political crimes in the context of Amnesty's? 37 00:04:48,610 --> 00:04:56,950 The first reason is because both of them are linked to positions, which is our connecting topic today. 38 00:04:56,950 --> 00:05:08,740 I would say that both of them are present in transitions from war to peace, from authoritarianism to democracy or any other sort of conflict. 39 00:05:08,740 --> 00:05:12,400 And Amnesty's on on the. On the one side. Ah. 40 00:05:12,400 --> 00:05:21,790 Ah. Ah. Mechanism that was presence for a long time and as a as a peace instrument. 41 00:05:21,790 --> 00:05:29,440 And by this I could do a big historical conversion and go to Greece, which I will look to currently in the transitional justice framework. 42 00:05:29,440 --> 00:05:38,620 Amnesty's account for over one half of the transitional justice mechanisms, which highlights that the relevance of the instrument. 43 00:05:38,620 --> 00:05:40,330 However, at the same time, 44 00:05:40,330 --> 00:05:49,420 they receive a lot of criticism and they are frequently challenged as it happened in many cases in Latin America, apart from in Brazil. 45 00:05:49,420 --> 00:05:55,270 When I say that I will talk about amnesties, I would like to highlight also that we have different types of amnesties. 46 00:05:55,270 --> 00:05:58,810 We have conditional amnesties and unconditioned amnesties. 47 00:05:58,810 --> 00:06:08,080 We have amnesties that are a result of fairly open public discussion of the decision on granting them. 48 00:06:08,080 --> 00:06:12,220 And we have amnesties that are simply posed by dictators. 49 00:06:12,220 --> 00:06:17,080 So these nuances need to be analysed. 50 00:06:17,080 --> 00:06:25,390 When we talk both about amnesties and when we talk about political crimes and why here don't talk about political crimes. 51 00:06:25,390 --> 00:06:28,300 Most Amnesty Scholder political crimes, 52 00:06:28,300 --> 00:06:41,470 they account for approximately 85 percent of all the amnesties granted during a period during the period from 1990 to 2000 and sixteen. 53 00:06:41,470 --> 00:06:47,260 That's my question is what are political crimes in the context of Amnesty's? 54 00:06:47,260 --> 00:06:52,300 This will be a pending question for a while, but I don't plan to answer in the beginning of representation. 55 00:06:52,300 --> 00:07:00,280 Most part of the literature tackles the political crimes that can receive amnesties under the label of international crime. 56 00:07:00,280 --> 00:07:06,520 And this is this is a mess. This is part of a massive literature that I've had that I have come across. 57 00:07:06,520 --> 00:07:10,150 But I deem this to be a bit problematic for two reasons. 58 00:07:10,150 --> 00:07:18,760 First, because international crimes, they are only account accountable for 22 percent of all the amnesties granted. 59 00:07:18,760 --> 00:07:25,390 So even though they are a very problematic part of it, they are not the biggest part of it. 60 00:07:25,390 --> 00:07:36,800 Second, because Amnesty's seems to me to be rather a problem of domestic criminal law all or at least the amnesties that I focus on my research. 61 00:07:36,800 --> 00:07:44,170 And an example of this is the clash that South Africa had with the apartheid convention of 1973, 62 00:07:44,170 --> 00:07:52,990 where they did not sign nor ratified and did not do so until notice in order to protect at the time the ridging that was in power. 63 00:07:52,990 --> 00:07:59,050 And now that days possibly to protect their amnesty. 64 00:07:59,050 --> 00:08:07,880 The concept of political crime and a possible overlap with international crimes become a source of bigger concern. 65 00:08:07,880 --> 00:08:16,230 Well, that's a shows that. Free democracies are decreasing on their quality, 66 00:08:16,230 --> 00:08:27,030 and free democracies are traditionally the ones that do not consider international amnesty for international crimes. 67 00:08:27,030 --> 00:08:43,450 This overlap between international crimes and amnesties is hence a problem because it might put in danger the compliance with human rights. 68 00:08:43,450 --> 00:08:52,880 And with this, I tried to argue that Amnesty's an intern and political crimes lack a normative background, 69 00:08:52,880 --> 00:09:00,230 which as a consequence, leave leave states to the to discretion to apply them according to their wishes. 70 00:09:00,230 --> 00:09:10,430 Second, I argue that political crimes can offer or at least offer some normative background to amnesties since we are talking about a crime and crime. 71 00:09:10,430 --> 00:09:19,960 Traditionally demands a definition to be aligned to the legality principle. 72 00:09:19,960 --> 00:09:30,590 And as a consequence, I propose some elements that derived from the amnesty analysis to figure as elements of the crime of the political crime. 73 00:09:30,590 --> 00:09:37,250 With this, I jumped into Yemen, into the Amnesty's overview. 74 00:09:37,250 --> 00:09:47,690 I know I promised to not do any historical diversion, but here I need to jump in to Greece, 404 for Christ, the the very big root of that. 75 00:09:47,690 --> 00:09:57,290 And this two words is a net amnesia, which is a Greek word for oblivion, forgetfulness. 76 00:09:57,290 --> 00:10:06,180 And even if historically amnesties were related to oblivion and recently they might have changed, 77 00:10:06,180 --> 00:10:11,760 the biggest part of amnesties are still not related to memory and truth recovery. 78 00:10:11,760 --> 00:10:20,970 Less than 20 out of two hundred and eighty nine amnesties from 1990 to 2016 are conditioned to truth. 79 00:10:20,970 --> 00:10:30,870 They have been thus used to keep mostly used to keep peace between conflicting conflicting states and political enemies. 80 00:10:30,870 --> 00:10:41,800 My working definition of Amnesty's is. A state official policy or law that grants forgiveness in criminal jurisdiction to prospect and 81 00:10:41,800 --> 00:10:49,900 previous consequences of criminal behaviour in response to pullets to exceptional circumstances. 82 00:10:49,900 --> 00:10:53,770 And by this we have five features from amnesties that emerge. 83 00:10:53,770 --> 00:11:02,260 And I will briefly explain them to you. The first is that Amnesty's work ends and remain an expression of sovereign power. 84 00:11:02,260 --> 00:11:14,860 And the relevance of this is because when it started back there a bit after Greece with a Gittings granting pardons to their citizens. 85 00:11:14,860 --> 00:11:20,200 They were related to an expression of such sovereign mercy. 86 00:11:20,200 --> 00:11:24,040 And nowadays, events suppressed in the most various ways. 87 00:11:24,040 --> 00:11:34,630 We will approach it when we talk about the procedures and amnesty. The second is the recognition in civil or criminal consequences of the crime. 88 00:11:34,630 --> 00:11:39,340 First, when addressing the criminal consequences of the crime, 89 00:11:39,340 --> 00:11:44,950 they are both related to prospect consequences in the sense that a crime is committed today. 90 00:11:44,950 --> 00:11:51,250 An investigation is still not in place, but Amnesty's already gives some protection to this perpetrator. 91 00:11:51,250 --> 00:11:56,230 I'm also due to brief U.S. Consequences in the sense that the crime is committed. 92 00:11:56,230 --> 00:12:01,510 The individual was sentenced and then amnesty comes for both cases. 93 00:12:01,510 --> 00:12:04,970 Amnesty would cover the criminal consequence. 94 00:12:04,970 --> 00:12:13,400 The second aspect, and for me may be a bit more problematic, is that Amnesty's, according to countries, can or can cover or not. 95 00:12:13,400 --> 00:12:20,570 The civil consequences of the crime and in the cases where they would cover also the civil consequences of the crime. 96 00:12:20,570 --> 00:12:26,300 This would implicate keeping victims. 97 00:12:26,300 --> 00:12:31,820 Absolutely. The UN assistance, which is a very serious problem. 98 00:12:31,820 --> 00:12:36,650 When we talk about gross human rights violations and international crimes, 99 00:12:36,650 --> 00:12:43,420 from the criminal law perspective, I would also like to highlight that Amnesty's are not. 100 00:12:43,420 --> 00:12:52,070 Do not bring a statement concerning the liability of the crime, but rather of the responsibility of the individual for its consequences. 101 00:12:52,070 --> 00:12:59,960 And the message before behind's it is that what we talk about, someone who committed a political crime. 102 00:12:59,960 --> 00:13:03,980 The amnesty message is, well, the crime might have been committed. 103 00:13:03,980 --> 00:13:08,070 This person might have been might have perpetrated the crime and steal. 104 00:13:08,070 --> 00:13:11,870 We will choose to not prosecuted and obviously, 105 00:13:11,870 --> 00:13:17,180 depending on which crime was the political crime in case this have this might 106 00:13:17,180 --> 00:13:25,080 have suffered serious consequences to the moral and moral message behind it. 107 00:13:25,080 --> 00:13:33,810 The group targeted by Amnesty's is necessarily as tight as I put it, a title. 108 00:13:33,810 --> 00:13:44,820 A group, not an individual. Amnesty's weren't are not namely destined to two individuals, as is the case, for instance, with the pardons. 109 00:13:44,820 --> 00:13:54,240 And we have very recent examples of the pardons given by the former American president. 110 00:13:54,240 --> 00:14:02,730 When we talk about a timeframe of this D, they have they have a predefined starts, an ending point. 111 00:14:02,730 --> 00:14:08,180 They cover it crimes from day any to date set. 112 00:14:08,180 --> 00:14:18,430 They are not unlimited time and also it covers both past and future conducts and we talk about future conduct. 113 00:14:18,430 --> 00:14:31,750 It's because Amnesty's especially if they aim to to to involve individuals that are currently in conflict, 114 00:14:31,750 --> 00:14:36,500 are currently part of the conflict, rebels and et cetera. 115 00:14:36,500 --> 00:14:47,880 They can they can serve as to stimulate them to lay down their arms. 116 00:14:47,880 --> 00:14:55,600 And last but not least, the exception to the context and by exceptional context, I mean that Amnesty's, 117 00:14:55,600 --> 00:15:04,570 as we established, are usually a result of wars of dictatorship and some other sort of conflict. 118 00:15:04,570 --> 00:15:11,410 And by saying this, we assume at least that this is not the norm, rather the exception. 119 00:15:11,410 --> 00:15:17,670 So they are usually applied in exceptional contexts. And I suspect. 120 00:15:17,670 --> 00:15:23,070 And here I, I give a bit of a hint of my views on political crime. 121 00:15:23,070 --> 00:15:31,380 That's the contextual circumstances of the moment when amnesty was granted will operate a relevant standard in the analysis 122 00:15:31,380 --> 00:15:42,340 of political crimes and defining the different levels of violence that can or will be tolerated by a certain amnesty. 123 00:15:42,340 --> 00:15:52,900 Even if I have briefly mentioned pardons and other forms of state leniency towards criminal behaviour or are not in the scope of this research, 124 00:15:52,900 --> 00:16:04,870 such as immunities, statute limitations and others. 125 00:16:04,870 --> 00:16:10,030 As I said before, amnesties are very, very right. 126 00:16:10,030 --> 00:16:14,230 We can have many different amnesties with many different features. 127 00:16:14,230 --> 00:16:19,540 And usually what makes the difference between them are how they are granted. 128 00:16:19,540 --> 00:16:26,440 And that's why I decided to talk about the procedural aspects of Amnesty's. 129 00:16:26,440 --> 00:16:35,630 I defined it the procedural aspects into two phases of amnesty and the stakeholders which I would present soon when talking about the freight, 130 00:16:35,630 --> 00:16:39,250 the phases of amnesty. So I am by analysing literature. 131 00:16:39,250 --> 00:16:45,930 I realise that most of the times amnesties are mentioned quite honest is that the UN systematically, 132 00:16:45,930 --> 00:16:49,930 in the sense that sometimes we talk about granting, sometimes we talk about applying. 133 00:16:49,930 --> 00:17:00,340 So I tried to organise this into three phases. First is the granting phase, and I would say that this is what's the most important and common one. 134 00:17:00,340 --> 00:17:09,520 The granting phase and I like this, the decision of granting amnesty and reach legal instruments are used for it. 135 00:17:09,520 --> 00:17:16,490 There are three different legal instruments, long peace agreements and executive discretion. 136 00:17:16,490 --> 00:17:26,680 And the difference between them is that it will. There are some nuances according to the level of public participation that they are involved. 137 00:17:26,680 --> 00:17:40,180 And even in the executive discretion, we can have executive decrees that are later discussed with the public and a referendum or something like this. 138 00:17:40,180 --> 00:17:51,450 And also, we can have laws that are amnesty laws that are passed by a non democratically elected legislature. 139 00:17:51,450 --> 00:17:57,870 So these are relevant nuances when we talk about the instruments of amnesty. 140 00:17:57,870 --> 00:18:03,930 The second relevant part of it. 141 00:18:03,930 --> 00:18:12,870 Granting face for me is the conditionality of amnesty. Amnesties can be rented with conditions or not. 142 00:18:12,870 --> 00:18:24,480 And the condition would be the obligation to apply to to apply to amnesty in order to provide the perpetrator the chance to obtain or retain amnesty. 143 00:18:24,480 --> 00:18:28,290 They play a relevant role and amnesties since, according to literature, 144 00:18:28,290 --> 00:18:34,200 the legitimacy and capacity to contribute to peace of an amnesty and can provide 145 00:18:34,200 --> 00:18:40,310 dependent on the existence and the quantity of the conditions attached to the process. 146 00:18:40,310 --> 00:18:46,340 There are mainly two types of Amnesty's sorry, there are mainly two types of conditions, 147 00:18:46,340 --> 00:18:52,260 the ones that focus on combat combatants and the ones that focus on victims. 148 00:18:52,260 --> 00:19:02,620 There are also unconditional amnesties. They consist of 35 percent of the total of Amnesty's annualised of the total. 149 00:19:02,620 --> 00:19:15,440 One hundred and eighty nine amnesties analysed. Between 2000 and nineteen ninety sorry, between 1990 and 2016. 150 00:19:15,440 --> 00:19:27,080 And here I got some data to show, which are usually the conditions that are present in the end, the conditional on the states. 151 00:19:27,080 --> 00:19:34,840 And as you can see, telling the truth and repairing the victims are not the biggest part of them. 152 00:19:34,840 --> 00:19:41,080 And this I would like to highlight, because we will we will analyse this as an element later on. 153 00:19:41,080 --> 00:19:50,140 Again. With this, I move on to the application phase, the application phase, 154 00:19:50,140 --> 00:19:59,110 depending on which decisions are worth taking during the granting phase, might require the bench the beneficiary to apply for amnesty. 155 00:19:59,110 --> 00:20:04,420 If the amnesty is conditional, that the beneficiary needs to apply to receive the amnesty. 156 00:20:04,420 --> 00:20:11,950 This means that there is a concrete case analysis before the amnesty is applied to the individual case. 157 00:20:11,950 --> 00:20:23,290 Hence, another state's authority would analyse the application, which is also helpful to give a bit more of power balance in the amnesty process. 158 00:20:23,290 --> 00:20:33,300 And there are also applications eventually, in the end, the end, the unconditional amnesties. 159 00:20:33,300 --> 00:20:41,010 They could they could come as a defence in a criminal proceeding or they could come as a sort of obvious push or an escape. 160 00:20:41,010 --> 00:20:45,900 I see. I explain here when amnesty can appear as a defence. 161 00:20:45,900 --> 00:20:51,450 For instance, someone that committed a crime and is being prosecuted in court. 162 00:20:51,450 --> 00:21:00,810 This person can claim that, in fact, there is no reasoning for this prosecution since this person is Kofod by a previous amnesty. 163 00:21:00,810 --> 00:21:06,180 And this would happen on a case by case differently. 164 00:21:06,180 --> 00:21:11,250 I would I labelled that amnesties can be used as a form of this. 165 00:21:11,250 --> 00:21:20,610 If I say in the case that despite not existing and not existing any conditions to the amnesty application, 166 00:21:20,610 --> 00:21:26,880 there is a formal process where you have to apply and appear before a certain authority. 167 00:21:26,880 --> 00:21:39,300 In this case, there would be some analysis also of the suitability and legality of the end of the amnesty application, regardless of any conditions. 168 00:21:39,300 --> 00:21:52,570 And in all of these three cases, political crimes could be requisite to be evaluated in the amnesty application process. 169 00:21:52,570 --> 00:21:59,020 And in the in the application phase, I would like to highlight that in all of these cases, 170 00:21:59,020 --> 00:22:04,690 there will be an individual case analysis by regarding any procedure of application. 171 00:22:04,690 --> 00:22:11,260 Those amnesties lower by this regarding story whenever it's not the case of needing an 172 00:22:11,260 --> 00:22:18,310 application face for an amnesty to two for an individual to benefit for the amnesty, 173 00:22:18,310 --> 00:22:28,850 it would mean that there. That these amnesties lowered to zero the burden of proof and truth, disclosure and victim reparation. 174 00:22:28,850 --> 00:22:37,270 But this I would like to do a very brief reflection on with my criminal lawyer side speaking out loud, 175 00:22:37,270 --> 00:22:46,600 because when we talk about a person that commits a crime and alleges and and claims that the crime was committed in self-defence, 176 00:22:46,600 --> 00:22:53,740 this person still needs to go to court and prove that this was the case of self-defence. 177 00:22:53,740 --> 00:23:03,370 And when we talk about amnesties that's are granted without any condition and without any application procedure, 178 00:23:03,370 --> 00:23:13,760 we're talking about amnesties where the person doesn't need to basically say anything to benefit from this order. 179 00:23:13,760 --> 00:23:22,900 With this after this brief reflection, I would like to jump into the recognition recognition phase in the recognition phase, the amnesty. 180 00:23:22,900 --> 00:23:31,460 But Midcity is analysed in the sense that it's analysed broadly as the amnesty of the amnesty provision is analysed broadly, 181 00:23:31,460 --> 00:23:41,210 not on a case by case basis. This could happen in conditional amnesties as it was the case of the case in South Africa. 182 00:23:41,210 --> 00:23:48,320 And it can also happen in unconditional amnesties as it happened in Brazil. 183 00:23:48,320 --> 00:23:51,950 In this case, it's still possible that legal measures are taken. 184 00:23:51,950 --> 00:24:00,620 Eggar, Erica, on this challenging the validity of Amnesty's rather than on individual basis. 185 00:24:00,620 --> 00:24:11,120 With this move towards the stakeholder analysis, the stakeholders are the persons or entities with an interest or concern in the amnesty process. 186 00:24:11,120 --> 00:24:18,560 I divided them into three categories. The beneficiary, the granting authority, and I think the most problematic one. 187 00:24:18,560 --> 00:24:21,760 But I want to take the chance to raise this concern that, ah, 188 00:24:21,760 --> 00:24:28,430 that what I labelled as bystanders, the beneficiaries of amnesties, are the perpetrators. 189 00:24:28,430 --> 00:24:36,980 They are the ones that benefit either immediately either after the application or the condition implementation. 190 00:24:36,980 --> 00:24:42,220 The granting authorities I labelled as the state. 191 00:24:42,220 --> 00:24:47,710 As I said previously, this the amnesties aren't traditionally given by those who hold power to do so. 192 00:24:47,710 --> 00:24:55,900 And since they they they they approach the the forgiveness of crimes, 193 00:24:55,900 --> 00:25:01,090 those who have the legitimacy to forgive these crimes are the ones who work would be responsible, 194 00:25:01,090 --> 00:25:15,290 Frauke, for them, for the criminal prosecution, which would mean the state. 195 00:25:15,290 --> 00:25:23,180 And in this category, I would like to highlight the presence of the self amnesties and the reason why I highlight their presence 196 00:25:23,180 --> 00:25:33,760 is because whenever the state uses an amnesty provision to forgive the crimes committed by their own agents, 197 00:25:33,760 --> 00:25:44,390 the logic behind the amnesty granted diverges because whenever the state forgives a non-state actor for a crime committed by, 198 00:25:44,390 --> 00:25:54,770 it is using the fact that the crime was committed, even if not directly, indirectly, against the state. 199 00:25:54,770 --> 00:26:03,680 Who has the law? However, concerning state actors, the state leniency with them does not make sense actors. 200 00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:09,810 As as it would be the case of actors in political crimes. And here I would raise the question. 201 00:26:09,810 --> 00:26:17,820 Can the state be both the victim and the perpetrator of a political crime? 202 00:26:17,820 --> 00:26:24,400 And finally, I get to the bystander's category by goodbye's by analysing them. 203 00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:31,420 I would like to to to to give a bit of insight on how I labelled. 204 00:26:31,420 --> 00:26:40,420 They would be the subject who see what is happening without being actively involved in the amnesty process. 205 00:26:40,420 --> 00:26:47,530 And here I highlight they are bystanders and in the amnesty process rather than in the crime, 206 00:26:47,530 --> 00:26:56,120 because obviously victims are not bystanders in the crime. And why do I say this? 207 00:26:56,120 --> 00:27:08,530 Because both victims and the international community are remaining quiet. 208 00:27:08,530 --> 00:27:14,860 This tent from the amnesty granting and sometimes whenever conditions are not present, 209 00:27:14,860 --> 00:27:24,510 also from the application of of Amnesty's, which I find to be very problematic. 210 00:27:24,510 --> 00:27:32,960 By victims, I am talking about those who are directly or indirectly impacted by the book, by the amnesty. 211 00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:34,760 And by international community, 212 00:27:34,760 --> 00:27:43,640 I talk about the states other than the other than those who weren't which were directly involved in the conflict or war. 213 00:27:43,640 --> 00:27:55,810 And as an example, we'll talk about that, the American presence and the conduct operations in Latin America in the 80s. 214 00:27:55,810 --> 00:28:04,300 With this, I would like to start discussing the rationale behind amnesty and the rationale behind prosecution. 215 00:28:04,300 --> 00:28:09,420 The rationale is would be the reason behind the amnesty existence. 216 00:28:09,420 --> 00:28:17,500 It is necessary to comprehend them because they are justifications behind prosecution and punishment in both domestic and 217 00:28:17,500 --> 00:28:28,060 international criminal law and relate to and relate them to transitional justice to premises are necessary to be established here. 218 00:28:28,060 --> 00:28:37,270 The first one is that there is not necessarily a direct opposition between amnesty and prosecution. 219 00:28:37,270 --> 00:28:45,370 Russian atlas. I do believe at the end that in certain cases, depending on how the procedure of amnesties is developed, 220 00:28:45,370 --> 00:28:56,690 it is possible that amnesties can cover at least some of the of the the Russian others involved in prosecution. 221 00:28:56,690 --> 00:29:04,840 And the second premise is that both of these aims are achievable, which would be an analysis, 222 00:29:04,840 --> 00:29:13,260 whether they are achievable or not, would be a complete different. Research. 223 00:29:13,260 --> 00:29:18,120 Finally, I I treated in a twofold manner. 224 00:29:18,120 --> 00:29:27,530 First is that Amnesty's can both lead to achieving the rationale of prosecution or. 225 00:29:27,530 --> 00:29:34,890 And the rationale is behind amnesties are more important than the ones in persecution. 226 00:29:34,890 --> 00:29:40,410 With this, I talk about which are the Russian in criminal and international criminal law. 227 00:29:40,410 --> 00:29:47,860 The Russian army is being behind prosecution are usually retribution, deterrence, restoration and expressive ism. 228 00:29:47,860 --> 00:29:58,330 I wouldn't want to explain each of them, but I would like to point out to to ask the question whether can amnesty achieve those objectives? 229 00:29:58,330 --> 00:30:06,940 When we talk about the retribution aspect, the moral analysis of concerning the commitment of a crime. 230 00:30:06,940 --> 00:30:17,320 It seems to be the case that eventually amnesty can and can represent can give at least a bit of this moral aspect. 231 00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:24,210 But it really depends on the procedure. And on the the team. 232 00:30:24,210 --> 00:30:31,260 Concerning the terrorists, I would be a bit more hesitant because amnesties have been repeatedly granted. 233 00:30:31,260 --> 00:30:40,130 We have some examples of, for instance, Sri Lanka, where we had 30 to Amnesty's best estimate. 234 00:30:40,130 --> 00:30:50,700 Which means that they do. They still remain necessary because the crimes related to conflict keep on being committed. 235 00:30:50,700 --> 00:30:58,690 With this, I would like to address restoration and expressive ism, which as well can be achieved by amnesty, 236 00:30:58,690 --> 00:31:08,200 depending on the procedure which is used, depending on how much victims are involved in the amnesty process. 237 00:31:08,200 --> 00:31:17,590 Then I'll jump to transition. Whatever the rationale is behind transition, the first one, I would say that is the most immediate one, that is Speace. 238 00:31:17,590 --> 00:31:22,440 And when we talk about peace, I would just like to do a small observation in the sense that, 239 00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:28,000 um, the seas are far away from being the requisite to achieving peace. 240 00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:36,310 Data shows that they are granted in high rates, not only renegotiation, but in fact, during all the other faces, 241 00:31:36,310 --> 00:31:49,960 conflict, negotiation, renegotiation, mean negotiation, comprehensive agreements and and host agreement. 242 00:31:49,960 --> 00:32:00,360 And finally, when we talk about truth. As I mentioned before, in the previous slide where I showed the conditions to this D, 243 00:32:00,360 --> 00:32:06,600 it is also possible to see that truth is not a frequent condition. And in the amnesty, even in the later. 244 00:32:06,600 --> 00:32:15,490 In the late. Years. The relevance of this question is then what stands out? 245 00:32:15,490 --> 00:32:24,720 And here I propose some to wait to balance these these rationales. 246 00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:33,150 The need for retribution, deterrence and restoration, or expressive ism is either outweighed by the need for peace, 247 00:32:33,150 --> 00:32:41,400 truth and reconciliation, or they are as important as the need for peace, truth and reconciliation. 248 00:32:41,400 --> 00:32:45,780 The balance should bend to the side of justice. 249 00:32:45,780 --> 00:32:57,120 Whenever there is a close relationship with the rule of law, punishment and prosecution are deemed as signs of institutionalised accountability. 250 00:32:57,120 --> 00:33:02,910 Which means that in longer terms, societies might pay a price for skipping this phase. 251 00:33:02,910 --> 00:33:09,290 Put it like this. The balance tends to the side should bend to the side of peace. 252 00:33:09,290 --> 00:33:16,800 Whenever a society can be so fragile lies that granting amnesty is the only way to achieve peace in the short term. 253 00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:17,850 In the case. 254 00:33:17,850 --> 00:33:28,440 Retribution, deterrence and expressive ism and restoration of hope in case they are not achievable at peace might be the only way to do so. 255 00:33:28,440 --> 00:33:35,870 Which means the best outcome would come through amnesties. And in this case, we cannot deny it. 256 00:33:35,870 --> 00:33:43,730 We have different and different interests that are present in amnesty by this part of my presentation. 257 00:33:43,730 --> 00:33:49,370 I would address which which stakeholders are really two different interests, too. 258 00:33:49,370 --> 00:34:00,260 At the end. I would like to really these interests to political crimes in the sense that when the states decides to criminalise a search and conduct, 259 00:34:00,260 --> 00:34:05,160 it aims to with this law protecting certain interests. 260 00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:12,020 And my question would be, which is the interest protected by political crimes from the state's perspective? 261 00:34:12,020 --> 00:34:18,860 The interest would be go for an ability and political stability with two important variables as limitations. 262 00:34:18,860 --> 00:34:30,740 The existence in this state of strong institutions and the rule of law in the sense that the states cannot put in this scope in the book of honesty, 263 00:34:30,740 --> 00:34:41,340 whichever content they would want, the individual perspective would be we have as an interest the freedom of political prisoners, 264 00:34:41,340 --> 00:34:44,300 the individual's rights of political expression, 265 00:34:44,300 --> 00:34:52,700 and also their intricate reintegration of former combatants in the sense that whenever someone is sentenced for the crime, 266 00:34:52,700 --> 00:34:56,420 they lose most part of the times their political rights, 267 00:34:56,420 --> 00:35:05,720 which would mean if if a state sentence people to to go to a certain political crimes at the end. 268 00:35:05,720 --> 00:35:11,270 This would mean that they are they remain outside of the political life of the country. 269 00:35:11,270 --> 00:35:19,160 And finally, society victims and international community's perspective are reunited by peace amongst other interests 270 00:35:19,160 --> 00:35:28,850 by which could which I could explain by truth I acknowledgement of the violations and reparations. 271 00:35:28,850 --> 00:35:42,910 But how do they relate to political crimes? Which of these interests are at stake in the norm protection of of criminalising a political crime? 272 00:35:42,910 --> 00:35:47,140 I suspect that is the state's perspective that is at stake. 273 00:35:47,140 --> 00:35:53,500 However, whenever the criminalisation of a political crime would harm more than protect it. 274 00:35:53,500 --> 00:36:05,430 And this dish should be granted. And with this, I jumped into the heart of this presentation, which crimes can figure in the scope of honesty? 275 00:36:05,430 --> 00:36:09,020 Usually some criteria aren't the limit. 276 00:36:09,020 --> 00:36:15,390 Teach it to choose which crimes should or should not be in the scope of amnesty. 277 00:36:15,390 --> 00:36:21,060 These these crimes these criteria arise from limiting dates. 278 00:36:21,060 --> 00:36:26,340 Crimes that are committed from a certain date to another date. 279 00:36:26,340 --> 00:36:31,200 Also by listing crimes Richman's and then amnesty law. 280 00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:38,460 That would be on a list of which crimes could be forgiven. 281 00:36:38,460 --> 00:36:47,130 And finally, and most commonly, the third is to introduce amnesty to political and related crimes. 282 00:36:47,130 --> 00:36:56,010 These three criteria. They can be applied cumulatively or alternatively. 283 00:36:56,010 --> 00:37:08,230 And here I question. Do they have do these crimes that receive amnesty have any specific quality? 284 00:37:08,230 --> 00:37:15,430 Which crimes can be granted amnesty? Since the majority of them are political crimes, as I previously said. 285 00:37:15,430 --> 00:37:19,240 What are the political crimes so far? 286 00:37:19,240 --> 00:37:23,860 I spoke about political crimes and I purposely did not explain it. 287 00:37:23,860 --> 00:37:29,410 The first pillar is that I have to step here is that I talk about political crimes 288 00:37:29,410 --> 00:37:34,210 because this is the term that is used in most part of the amnesty provisions. 289 00:37:34,210 --> 00:37:39,390 But in fact, what I want to do is to question this thing. 290 00:37:39,390 --> 00:37:48,870 Literature has traditionally defined it, it's in six categories economic crimes, crimes against individual sexual violence, evasion and desertion. 291 00:37:48,870 --> 00:37:52,350 And international international crimes and political crimes. 292 00:37:52,350 --> 00:38:01,830 However, this categorisation leads to the assumption that there could be no overlap when in fact it's all about due overlap. 293 00:38:01,830 --> 00:38:10,600 Can sexual crimes be considered a political crime? Can international crimes because sudheer a political crime? 294 00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:25,270 Here I recall the concept of amnesty that I put before, and let's take a hypothesis where the capital, the American capital, is invaded. 295 00:38:25,270 --> 00:38:31,090 Let's suppose that few years later, the American president, when leaving his or her mandates, 296 00:38:31,090 --> 00:38:39,550 decides to pass an amnesty act that forgives those who are sentenced to public patrimony discussion, 297 00:38:39,550 --> 00:38:45,550 bodily injury and homicide and homicides committed during this invasion. 298 00:38:45,550 --> 00:38:52,850 The invasion is clearly far from being ordinary. It was an exceptional context. 299 00:38:52,850 --> 00:39:03,360 If those crimes were committed not in the context of these exceptional event, but outside the invasion, there would be no forgiveness for them. 300 00:39:03,360 --> 00:39:04,830 Starting from the promise, 301 00:39:04,830 --> 00:39:14,790 from the premise that amnesties are granted to to crimes that are committed to what we label labelled before in an exceptional context, 302 00:39:14,790 --> 00:39:19,110 at strictly, every crime could be considered for amnesty. 303 00:39:19,110 --> 00:39:24,680 So long as they are committed under this umbrella. Hence the hype. 304 00:39:24,680 --> 00:39:30,530 But hypothetically, every crime could be granted amnesty. But is that so? 305 00:39:30,530 --> 00:39:39,670 Here I start talking about what I suspect cannot be part of this deal, neither as a consequence be considered political crimes. 306 00:39:39,670 --> 00:39:44,060 I addressed international crimes and gross human rights violations. 307 00:39:44,060 --> 00:39:53,910 All of them are hardly ever explicitly listed in the amnesties, even though in reality they are sometimes covered by them. 308 00:39:53,910 --> 00:39:56,700 How can they not be listed and still be eventually, 309 00:39:56,700 --> 00:40:10,280 Colford states apply diplomatic and diplomatic writing when defining political crimes in the sense that they define without defining a lot. 310 00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:17,180 Usually these crimes are hidden behind the writing of the amnesty provisions. 311 00:40:17,180 --> 00:40:24,920 And what hides them sometimes one of the categories that hides international crimes is the category of political crimes. 312 00:40:24,920 --> 00:40:28,550 The difficult issue with the relationship between international crimes, 313 00:40:28,550 --> 00:40:36,560 amnesties and political crimes is that Amnesty's cover serious, that Kovar serious human rights violations do not promote peace. 314 00:40:36,560 --> 00:40:49,860 And this is a result of empirical research then done by Bentzi, even if passed after a conflict that has ended. 315 00:40:49,860 --> 00:40:56,250 Hence, I ask the question, are international crimes and gross human rights violations subject to amnesty? 316 00:40:56,250 --> 00:40:59,130 Can they be considered political crimes? 317 00:40:59,130 --> 00:41:09,150 The first consideration is that there is no legal instrument or hard or soft law that expressly a testing possibility of granting amnesty to crimes, 318 00:41:09,150 --> 00:41:16,530 not even international crimes. However, there are documents that point out to the need of investigation and or prosecution, 319 00:41:16,530 --> 00:41:21,900 according to the legal illegal order, which is named as the duty to prosecute. 320 00:41:21,900 --> 00:41:31,480 It is ironic, though, that the only international document that refers specifically to amnesty does so by encouraging its. 321 00:41:31,480 --> 00:41:35,320 This controversy is bigger than the present. And this presentation. 322 00:41:35,320 --> 00:41:41,590 So I will only use it to delimit take the concept that is relevant to me, which is political friends in amnesty. 323 00:41:41,590 --> 00:41:48,010 The link between the obligation to prosecute an amnesty is that whenever the duty to prosecute applies. 324 00:41:48,010 --> 00:41:57,460 Amnesty cannot exist since they since they bar the investigation, prosecution or punishment. 325 00:41:57,460 --> 00:42:08,290 There are three three levels of of analysis of the data to prosecute, which I will skip due to the time. 326 00:42:08,290 --> 00:42:17,710 But what I would like to highlight is that there are different levels of commitment to prosecution amongst these things, 327 00:42:17,710 --> 00:42:25,120 instrument conventions that creates the obligation to to prosecute human rights treaties that adopt 328 00:42:25,120 --> 00:42:32,600 that approach it through to the through the right of remedy and customary international law. 329 00:42:32,600 --> 00:42:41,240 And my final question would be these limitations affect political crimes, should they affect political crimes? 330 00:42:41,240 --> 00:42:48,060 And my my my premise is that aligning amnesty to political crime, 331 00:42:48,060 --> 00:42:58,020 the political element that gives amnesty the possibility of giving a more lenient treatment to a crime. 332 00:42:58,020 --> 00:43:11,110 Does not seem to be the same element that could lead for a more serious treatment, for instance, towards an international criminal court. 333 00:43:11,110 --> 00:43:16,600 It would be rather contradiction, contradictory. 334 00:43:16,600 --> 00:43:26,080 For instance, if a public officer performs conduct that lead to systematic attack of a civilian or military tortures a prisoner, 335 00:43:26,080 --> 00:43:34,070 can the same political elements be enough to grant forgiveness? 336 00:43:34,070 --> 00:43:39,080 Water, then the political crimes. If this limit tape. 337 00:43:39,080 --> 00:43:43,310 If this limitation says that it was cannot be political crimes. 338 00:43:43,310 --> 00:43:54,200 The most relevant question would be how does this exceptional political elements translate and connect to it, to political crimes here? 339 00:43:54,200 --> 00:44:01,720 I would like to stop calling them political crimes. And and I am approaching the end of my presentation. 340 00:44:01,720 --> 00:44:08,510 From the start, I would start calling them crimes with a political element. 341 00:44:08,510 --> 00:44:15,620 They are conduct's united by the existence of a political elements that links the crime with amnesty for this. 342 00:44:15,620 --> 00:44:20,460 I have some hypothesis. I have found some hypothesis and literature. 343 00:44:20,460 --> 00:44:28,580 B, it's the motivation behind the conduct, the targets aimed or the context in which it's the crime is imputed. 344 00:44:28,580 --> 00:44:36,770 What this literature say. It says that political crimes are very our very various. 345 00:44:36,770 --> 00:44:47,310 They can start from defamation to extreme violence, which shows that there is a big range of discretion in defining them. 346 00:44:47,310 --> 00:44:55,380 Still, there are some common places that I would like to point out here behind this different labels that I found in literature, 347 00:44:55,380 --> 00:45:03,690 for instance, political and politically motivated crimes are political and related common crimes. 348 00:45:03,690 --> 00:45:12,270 What unites them is a conduct is some is that there are some condos that are fully committed to this political element, 349 00:45:12,270 --> 00:45:19,260 which means that if not in this and in this state, and that is to say, they would not be a crime. 350 00:45:19,260 --> 00:45:24,210 And there are conduct's that are only partially related to the political element, 351 00:45:24,210 --> 00:45:32,070 which means that if you remove the political element, they would still be considered crimes by that. 352 00:45:32,070 --> 00:45:42,330 As an example of the first ones, I could I could mention treason, rebellion, espionage, Foster Baganda between other elements. 353 00:45:42,330 --> 00:45:55,130 And as an example of the second category, I could, for instance, mention any theft in the cause of a political fight. 354 00:45:55,130 --> 00:46:03,860 The big questions are what determines the crimes that aren't fully affected by the political element as political 355 00:46:03,860 --> 00:46:10,940 crimes concerning those who were those crimes that are partially affected only by this political element, 356 00:46:10,940 --> 00:46:14,990 which graduations are allowed for it to be granted amnesty. 357 00:46:14,990 --> 00:46:24,650 In the course of crimes. Literature have been approaching it through the lens consist of of extradition. 358 00:46:24,650 --> 00:46:33,380 However, I take here a step back to consider whether this would be the solution or even if this would be the solution. 359 00:46:33,380 --> 00:46:39,350 Why would we? The two different. 360 00:46:39,350 --> 00:46:47,150 Two different legal categories in the same level. Just because they have the same legal political crimes. 361 00:46:47,150 --> 00:46:50,960 I take this that back to it to disconnect from extradition, 362 00:46:50,960 --> 00:46:57,620 labelling them as crimes with full political elements or crimes with a partial political one. 363 00:46:57,620 --> 00:47:05,720 And what is that I propose here? I propose translating the amnesty elements into elements of political crimes. 364 00:47:05,720 --> 00:47:11,720 And I name here for the four elements that I propose. The first is the legal interest. 365 00:47:11,720 --> 00:47:18,890 How did the interest involved in amnesty translate into the legal interests of political crimes? 366 00:47:18,890 --> 00:47:28,820 As I mentioned before, it seems to me that the interest protected by political crimes are the interests of the state. 367 00:47:28,820 --> 00:47:32,210 Also, when we analyse the parties to the crime, 368 00:47:32,210 --> 00:47:41,510 as in who can figure as the perpetrator and the victim of the crime, it would be the state as the victim. 369 00:47:41,510 --> 00:47:45,050 Because this is basically the rationale behind Rush Alley, 370 00:47:45,050 --> 00:47:59,300 behind the existence of a political crime and also the perpetrator as far as any other person who is opposing the state, 371 00:47:59,300 --> 00:48:06,660 which means this relation of opposition is an element of the political crimes. 372 00:48:06,660 --> 00:48:12,370 Which is also aligned with the with the observation that it did concerning itself. 373 00:48:12,370 --> 00:48:22,290 And this takes the material elements would be the limitations to the conduct when assessing different levels of violence and the contextual threshold, 374 00:48:22,290 --> 00:48:29,610 which I approach, as in the amnesty concept, as the exceptional aspect of justice. 375 00:48:29,610 --> 00:48:33,570 And finally, the mental element does motivation. 376 00:48:33,570 --> 00:48:48,000 In fact, the mental element, is the motivation enough, the political motivation enough to by itself cover Kovar, deem a crime as a political crime. 377 00:48:48,000 --> 00:48:53,220 And by this enable it to reach to receive amnesty. 378 00:48:53,220 --> 00:49:04,710 And this would be, for instance, a rhetorical question and an example concerning terrorism, which might have a political element. 379 00:49:04,710 --> 00:49:10,230 And with this, I finished my presentation. I would like to thank you so much for your attention. 380 00:49:10,230 --> 00:49:13,378 And I'm open to the questions.