The International Herald Tribune, October 25, 2011 Tuesday, BY MARLISE
SIMONS
Antonio Cassese; helped develop law on war crimes
PARIS
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DO- he would have been the chief architect of another area—terrorism. The
STL could have produced another piece of a breath-taking decision like the one
in Tadic case.
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He was often described as the chief architect of modern international
criminal justice.
Antonio Cassese, who helped found two international war-crimes
tribunals and who was often described as the chief architect of modern
international criminal justice, died on Saturday at his home in Florence. He
was 74.
He had had leukemia. After receiving the diagnosis some years ago, he
underwent taxing treatments but worked ever harder, staying late in his office,
writing on weekends and helping students.
In books, law journals and decisions from the bench, Mr. Cassese
expanded the body of international law that had lain mostly dormant since the
Nuremberg and Tokyo trials after World War II.
He taught law at the University of Florence, the European University
Institute and the University of Oxford. In 1993, he became the first president
of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, a court
established by the United Nations to deal with war crimes in the Balkans in the
1990s.
He proved to be something of a maverick among normally discreet
justices. Invariably affable but outspoken, he prodded fellow lawyers and
Western governments into providing more support for the fledgling tribunal. And
he played a central role in defining rules that would guide it and that have
since served as a model for other tribunals and courts.
Among his early decisions, seen as controversial at the time but widely
accepted since, were several that changed basic precepts of international
criminal law. One was that war crimes could be punished not only in wars
between nations, but also in conflicts within a particular country. In another,
he wrote that even if there was no war going on, massacres, torture and other
atrocities committed by governments or groups could be found to be crimes
against humanity and punished accordingly.
''Perhaps more than any other person, Antonio Cassese was both the
visionary and the architect of international criminal justice,'' said Theodor
Meron, an American judge who will take over next month as president of the
Yugoslavia tribunal.
Most recently, Mr. Cassese was president of the Special Tribunal for
Lebanon, created by the United Nations to try those accused of killing Lebanon's
former prime minister Rafik Hariri and 22 others. He resigned as president this
month as his health failed but stayed on as a judge.
As an independent expert, he led the International Commission of
Inquiry on Darfur and reviewed the judicial efficiency of the U.N.-backed
Special Court for Sierra Leone.
Over the years, Mr. Cassese became a familiar figure in The Hague,
where several international courts are based. He was often seen riding his
bicycle, and he was popular with colleagues for his wit and personal modesty,
as well as his erudition.
Claude Jorda, a former judge from France at the Yugoslavia tribunal,
said that when Mr. Cassese arrived in The Hague, he was a great legal scholar
with no idea what it meant to be a judge. ''But he did know that the new
tribunal was the one and perhaps only chance to make international justice
work,'' Judge Jorda said. ''Failure was unthinkable to him.''
Mr. Cassese, who was born on Jan. 1, 1937, in Atripalda, Italy, had
hoped to study philosophy or sociology. He said his father, whom he once
described as an impecunious civil servant, urged him to pursue a more secure
career. He chose law; a bonus was that he was offered free board and lodging at
the University of Pisa if he did so.
In an essay called ''Soliloquy,'' a personal history, he wrote that he
initially found it difficult to learn the hard discipline and the rigorous
logic of law. But eventually he became known for scholarly work ranging from
numerous essays to books including ''The Tokyo Trial and Beyond: Reflections of
a Peacemonger,'' based on his conversations with a Dutch judge, B.V.A. Roling.
Mr. Cassese won many awards for his work, including the 2009 Erasmus
Prize in the Netherlands. He used the prize money to help law students publish
their papers. He was editor in chief of The Oxford Companion to International
Criminal Justice, a reference work, and founded The Journal of International
Criminal Justice, which became a prestigious forum for debate.
Mr. Cassese insisted on the need for continuous debate because
international law was gradually emerging, and as such, reflecting the common
conscience of mankind. But he said it was vital to remain skeptical about harsh
laws. ''Laws may and should be improved if they are not up to reality,'' he
said frequently.
To remind himself, he kept these words from Bertolt Brecht, the German
playwright and poet, on his office wall in The Hague: ''I am by nature a man who
is difficult to control. I reject with outrage any authority that does not rest
on my respect. And I regard laws only as provisional and changeable proposals
for regulating human intercourse.''
Patricia M. Wald, a former U.S. judge who also served on the Yugoslavia
tribunal, said, ''There are moments in history when one individual can make a
great difference, and he was such a man.''
The former President of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, Judge Antonio
Cassese, has died after a long fight with cancer. He passed away peacefully at
home in Florence on Saturday 22 October 2011. He was 74.
Judge Cassese was professor of international law at the University of
Florence from 1975 until 2008. Between 1987 and 1993 he was professor of law at
the European University Institute. Judge Cassese was also a visiting fellow at
All Souls College, Oxford University (1979-80). He was a member of the Institut
de Droit International and former president of the Council of Europe Committee
for the Prevention of Torture
An enthusiastic proponent of self-determination and human rights
throughout his whole life, Judge Cassese wrote extensively on all aspects of
international law, with a particular focus on international criminal law. He
was the recipient of many honorary degrees and awards. Read the full press release
about the death of Judge Cassese
