IRAK SAVAŞI, BİRLEŞİK KRALLIK VE ULUSLARARASI CEZA MAHKEMESİ BAĞLAMINDA İNSAN HAKLARINA KARŞI TAMAMLAYICILIK
COMPLEMENTARY AGAINST HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE IRAQ WAR, THE UNITED KINGDOM AND THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

Summary/Abstract: A US-led coalition, including the United Kingdom, invaded Iraq on 20.03.2003 in an international armed conflict. UK forces occupied the city of Basra and its surroundings on 07.04.2003. Since then, the role of the UK armed forces in Iraq has been under the supervision of the International Criminal Court. Incidents arising from the UK occupation of Basra and its environs have been reported to the Prosecutor's Office by those who believe that the UK armed forces committed war crimes within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court. As early as 2004, the Office of the Prosecutor received reports from individuals and non-governmental organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, about the launch of military operations in Iraq and the resulting human casualties, and a preliminary inquiry into the Iraq/UK situation was therefore initiated. On 9 February 2006, former International Criminal Court Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo announced the closure of the preliminary inquiry after reviewing over 240 communications, information and other source documents in accordance with his special powers under Article 15 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. As Moreno-Ocampo explained in his letter to these groups in the case of Iraq/UK, the reason for the closure was that individual war crimes with a small number of victims were not sufficiently serious to meet the threshold of gravity required under Article 17 of the Rome Statute to be admissible under the law of the International Criminal Court. This paper discusses the four procedural aspects of International Criminal Court practice highlighted by the Iraq/UK investigation (a brief description of the preliminary examination stage, the alleged war crimes and jurisdictional issues, admissibility issues, the question of complementarity in light of the UK's military and national investigations) and how this investigation highlights the critical importance of the principle of complementarity.

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