Criminal prosecution of international crimes: The Colombian case

Abstract

The criminal prosecution of international crimes in Colombia is conditioned by the chronic armed conflict that the country experiences. The incorporation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court into the internal legal system demonstrates this situation. In this context, confusion between criminal law language and human rights language has emerged, and different areas of human rights protection are being obscured. Also, the history that precedes the prosecution of homicide as an international crime is at the same time the history of the integration of the language of war with the language of law. However, Colombian criminal justice system has "humanized" international humanitarian law, and is now advancing to clearer formulas to charge the crime of homicide of a protected person in complex scenarios, such as the ones presented in the cases of extralegal executions of youth from poor neighbourhoods (the so-called "false positives"). © 2010 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden.