Fair Trial e processo a Saddam Hussein

Unfortunately, the death penalty is not generally prohibited in international law, but only in specific treaties binding States having ratified them. All the same, the trial against Saddam and some collaborators of his regime by Iraqi Higher Court (IHC) was carried out in violation of international rules. It was an almost summary justice. The IHC was created in an antidemocratic way, by the Coalition Provisional Authority as occupying force of Iraq, in contradiction with the International Covenant on civil and political rights and the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949. The subse384 Flavia Lattanzi quent approval by the Iraqi Parliamentarian Assembly could not repair such genetic fault. The trial was characterized by investigations conducted before the creation of the Court itself, according to not clear rules of procedure and proof, taken by Iraqi codes, dating back to a period when the notion of fair trial where not developed as now it is. The crimes on which the IHC has competence are created, in part, by its Statute: as the individual crime of aggression, on which the international community has not been able to find a consensus. The rights of the accused were not granted, even from the point of view of the security of the people participating to the trial: the trial was conducted with the armed conflict still in course in a Baghdad under siege and three members of the defense team of Saddam were assassinated. Which rule of law could such a trial bring to Iraqi people?

Flavia Lattanzi, <em>Fair Trial </em>e processo a Saddam Hussein in "DIRITTI UMANI E DIRITTO INTERNAZIONALE" 2/2007, pp 369-384, DOI: