A comparison of the subject-matter jurisdiction of the international criminal tribunals /

The purpose of this thesis is to record the development of international criminal law by means of an analysis of the subject-matter jurisdiction of the few established international criminal tribunals. The first chapter will illustrate by a historical survey the evolution of the law and its impairment by an incoherent international realpolitik. Subsequently, the second chapter will analyze the present state of the law as reflected by the Statute of the ICC as well as the Statutes and jurisdiction of the ad hoc Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. It will thereby concentrate on the common elements of those crimes which form part of the jurisdiction of all the international criminal tribunals, i.e., "genocide", "crimes against humanity" and "war crimes." This thesis' intention is to examine both the originality and the imperfections of the present state of law