Book

International Conference on Military Jurisdiction : conference proceedings = Conférence internationale sur la juridiction militaire : textes de la conférence

Conférence internationale sur la juridiction militaire

Société internationale de droit militaire et de droit de la guerre ; Stanislas Horvat, Ilja Van Hespen, Veerle Van Gijsegem (eds.)

Bruxelles : Société internationale de droit militaire et de droit de la guerre, 2013

522 p. ; 24 cm

English, French

In 2001 the "seminar on military jurisdiction" was held in Rhodes, gathering 125 participants from 45 countries and making a synthesis of 38 national reports about the theme. Ten years later, the International Society sent a vast questionnaire to its national groups and to the ministries of Defence and of Justice of numerous countries, a total of 77. Nearly all the answering countries (25) had reforms of the military justice system since the 2001 seminar, mainly with regard to the criminal procedure and this mostly to make it compatible with human rights law or the Covenant on Political and Civil Rights. Some countries- such as Belgium - abolished their military courts. At this moment there is discussion in certain countries about possible reforms. After the fundamental institutional reforms in Tunisia after the change of government, the whole judicial system has been modified. Discussions in Australia deal with independence and impartiality of military courts. France is considering modifying wartime legislation and the abolishment of the Tribunal des Armies (dealing with offences committed by French military during operations abroad). In Ireland amendments are on their way. Kenya is changing its legislation on armed forces in order to make it compatible with its constitution. It is also quite clear that the Salduz case of the European Court for Human Rights will result in substantial changes for the countries bound by the European Convention with regard to the inquiry regarding military aspects and that new reforms of (military) judicial systems will be necessary.

• Full text : only from ICRC headquarters

• First international conference on military jurisdiction, 2001