Antonio Cassese

Antonio Cassese (2009)

Antonio Cassese (born  January 1, 1937 in Atripalda ; †  October 22, 2011 in Florence ) was an Italian lawyer and internationally recognized expert in the field of humanitarian law , human rights and, in particular, international criminal law .

From 1964 to 1972 he was a lecturer or professor at the University of Pisa and from 1975 worked as a professor of international law at the University of Florence . From 1993 to 2000 he was a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia , of which he was first president from 1993 to 1997. Between October 2004 and January 2005, he headed the International Commission of Inquiry United Nations for Darfur conflict . In addition, he acted as chairman of the special tribunal for Lebanon from March 2009 to October 2011 .

From 1995 Antonio Cassese was a member of the Institut de Droit international . He was also awarded honorary doctorates by various universities and was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2005 .

Life

Antonio Cassese was born in Atripalda in 1937 as the son of the historian Leopoldo Cassese and studied law at the Collegio medico-giuridico in Pisa . After a stay at the Geneva University Institute for International Studies , he acted as a lecturer from 1964 to 1972 and as a professor of international law at the University of Pisa from 1972 to 1974. Since 1975 he has worked in the same position at the University of Florence . From 1987 to 1993 he also worked at the European University Institute in Florence . He was also co-founder of the European Journal of International Law and founder and editor-in-chief of the Journal of International Criminal Justice .

Antonio Cassese also represented his home country at various international organizations and conferences. He was a member of the UN Human Rights Commission from 1972 to 1975 and of the Italian delegation to the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1974, 1975 and 1978 . From 1974 to 1977 he took part in the diplomatic conference in Geneva , at which the first two additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions were drawn up and adopted. At the Council of Europe he headed the Committee on Human Rights from 1984 to 1988 and from 1989 to 1993 the Committee against Torture .

From 1993 to 2000 he was a judge at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia , including the first president of the court from 1993 to 1997. He headed the first international tribunal to punish war crimes and crimes against humanity since the Nuremberg Trials after the end of the Second World War . In October 2004 he was appointed by the then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to head an International Commission of Inquiry at the United Nations to investigate reports of violations of international humanitarian law and human rights in the Darfur conflict . In its report published in January 2005, the Commission recommended that the UN Security Council refer the situation in Darfur to the International Criminal Court .

From March 2009 Antonio Cassese acted as chairman of the special tribunal for Lebanon , which was set up for the legal processing of the attack on the vehicle convoy of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri . In this function, he was decisively involved in an interim decision of the tribunal in February 2010, which legal experts assessed as a fundamental judgment with possibly far-reaching consequences for the development of international criminal law. According to this ruling, terrorism can, under certain circumstances, be assessed as an offense under international law and therefore subject to the jurisdiction of international courts. In October 2011 he resigned from the position of chairman of the tribunal for health reasons.

Antonio Cassese was married and had a son and a daughter. He died in October 2011 as a result of cancer . His brother Sabino Cassese is a professor of administrative law and a judge at the Italian Constitutional Court .

estate

Antonio Cassese's wife, Silvia Fano, deposited her husband's estate with the Historical Archives of the European Union in 2015 . It is released for use.

Awards

Antonio Cassese has been a member of the Institut de Droit international since 1995 and received honorary doctorates from the Erasmus University Rotterdam (1998), the University of Paris-Nanterre (1999), the University of Geneva (2000) and the University of Athens (2006). The American Society for International Law (ASIL) awarded him an ASIL Certificate of Merit in 1996 for his book "Self-determination of Peoples - A Legal Reappraisal". He was named a Distinguished Global Fellow by the New York University Law School in 2004 , and three years later he received the Wolfgang Friedmann Memorial Award from Columbia University . In 2009 he was awarded the Erasmus Prize.

In his home country he received the Grand Cross (Cavaliere di Gran Croce) of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2005 and the Antonio Feltrinelli Prize in 2010 .

The journals Journal of International Criminal Justice and European Journal of International Law published a commemorative edition and a collection of articles dedicated to him in his honor.

Works (selection)

• Violence and Law in the modern Age. Cambridge 1988
• Human Rights in a changing World. Cambridge 1990
• Self-Determination of Peoples - A Legal Reappraisal. Cambridge 1999
• International Law. Oxford and New York 2001 (second edition 2005)
• International Criminal Law. Oxford and New York 2003 (second edition 2008)
• The Human Dimension of International Law. Oxford 2008
• The Oxford Companion to International Criminal Justice. Oxford and New York 2009
• Five Masters of International Law. Oxford and Portland 2011

literature

• Biographical Note: Antonio Cassese, born in Italy in 1937. In: Recueil des Cours. Volume 192. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, The Hague 1983, ISBN 9-02-472628-X , pp. 337-340
• Lal Chand Vohrah: Introduction. Biographical information in: Lal Chand Vohrah (Ed.): Man's Inhumanity to Man: Essays on International Law in honor of Antonio Cassese. Series: International Humanitarian Law Series. Volume 5. Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2003, ISBN 9-04-111986-8 , pp. Xix-xxiii
• Marlise Simons: Antonio Cassese, War Crimes Law Expert, Dies at 74 Obituary in: The New York Times . New York, October 24, 2011, p. A21

Further publications

• Heikelien Verrijn Stuart, Marlise Simons: The Prosecutor and the Judge: Benjamin Ferencz and Antonio Cassese - Interviews and Writings. Amsterdam University Press, Amsterdam 2009, ISBN 9-08-555023-8
• Tamás Hoffmann: The Gentle Humanizer of Humanitarian Law: Antonio Cassese and the Creation of the Customary Law of Non-International Armed Conflicts. In: Carsten Stahn (ed.), Larissa van den Herik (ed.): Future Perspectives on International Criminal Justice. TMC Asser Press, The Hague 2010, ISBN 978-9-06-704309-0 , pp. 58-80

Web links

• Antonio Cassese Initiative for Justice, Peace and Humanity: Antonio Cassese (English)
• Société française pour le droit international: Antonio Cassese (1937–2011) (French, with picture)