ICJ Auxillary, Criminal Rights
Date: Friday, May 1, 2009
Written By: Hannah Bozman (Saddleback YMCA) from ITARR-TASS
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) Auxiliary had their debate on Friday about Criminal Rights. They discussed how different countries have different opinions and why. There was two separate conflicts: Italy versus United States of America and Jordan and Morocco versus Afghanistan. They were working on a resolution or compromise to end those conflicts with those countries.
Some of the first things they did included mentioning important concerns or facts on Criminal Rights policies. Here are some of the facts:
- Prisoners are being deprived of rights because of ethnicity or race
- No arrest can be carried out without a legitimate reason—there must be a justification for the arrest
- Everyone is given an equal and fair trial, with no biased tribunals
- An individual cannot be arrested for an offense that isn’t a passed law at the time of the arrest
- A criminal is allowed the right to worship or practice religion while being held in jail or prison
The Justices then decided to discuss the Death Penalty issue with these countries. Italy wants to completely eliminate the Death Penalty. To do that they need to get one hundred signatures of countries out of one hundred and eighty. However, China and the United States of America oppose because being large countries, their crime rate is significantly higher. Supporting them is Saudi Arabia, Iran and Singapore. Singapore argued in 2001 that it is that country’s own decision to eliminate or keep the Death Penalty.
The ICJ Auxiliary, last time we checked, had not come to a decision. Based on what the ambassadors discussed, a logical resolution may be to agree with Singapore and leave the decision to the individual country.
Tags: 8th MUN, Criminal Rights
Agreeing with Singapore is the only logical decision.Reason being, seeing as the ICJ Auxiliary discussed criminals being allowed the right to worship or practice their own religion it would be counter productive to even discuss the death penalty. The reason being most religions believe God insituted the death penalty, an eye for an eye, a life for a life. Therefore the only thing that is being accomplished is nothing more than a fruitless discussion of how to protect the rights of someone who in the name of religion violated a certain countries laws because of what they believe. This would only stand to reason that since most countries practice different religions each country should base their laws on those beliefs without outside influence. Any person found violating the laws of any country should be judged under the laws of that country. A world wide standared will never stand because so many differant beliefs and if an issue of this kind were pushed by Italy at the ICJ Auxiliary it would seriously threaten the influence of the ICJ on the world stage.
Great report, it’s wonderful to see our youth so interested in world events. Keep up the good work.
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