2024 Klatsky Endowed Lecture in Human Rights

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law Volume 57 Issue 1 Article 14 2025 2024 Klatsky Endowed Lecture in Human Rights Andrew Cayley Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/jil Part of the International Law Commons Recommended Citation Andrew Cayley, 2024 Klatsky Endowed Lecture in Human Rights, 57 Case W. Res. J. Int'l L. 445 (2025) Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.case.edu/jil/vol57/iss1/14 This Speech is brought to you for free and open access by the Student Journals at Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law by an authorized administrator of Case Western Reserve University School of Law Scholarly Commons. Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law Vol. 57 (2025) 2024 Klatsky Endowed Lecture in Human Rights * Andrew Cayley** Dean Paul Rose, Professor Michael Scharf, faculty members, and students of the university; ladies and gentlemen, thank you for this award. It means a very great deal to me to be recognized like this after a fair number of years in these fields of law. As has been said, I am currently Principal Trial Lawyer at the International Criminal Court, which is not without its challenges. Those challenges frankly are political rather than legal.1 If we were a world of laws rather than of men and women, it might all be easier. In the situation in Palestine, five applications for warrants of arrest were made in May of this year.2 A public statement was made by the Chief Prosecutor, Karim Khan KC, at the same time about these five cases.3 You can see that online. We know that at least one person against whom an application * Footnotes added and remarks edited for clarity and accuracy by Cox Center Fellow Michael Vidal, with the supervision of Senior Fellow Anna Buczek and the Volume 57 staff. ** Andrew Cayley is an international lawyer whose experience includes prosecuting cases before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (1995-2007), defending Charles Taylor before the Special Court for Sierra Leone and Ivan Cermak before the International Criminal Court (2007-2009), serving as the Co-Prosecutor of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (2009-2013), as the United Kingdom’s chief military prosecutor (2013-2020), and as the Principal Trial Lawyer at the International Criminal Court (2024). 1. See generally Catherine Gegout, The International Criminal Court: Limits, Potential and Conditions for the Promotion of Justice and Peace, 34 THIRD WORLD Q. 800 (2013) (examining the political difficulties the ICC faces in seeking to promote justice). 2. Karim A.A. Khan, Prosecutor, Int’l Crim. Ct., Statement on the Applications for Arrest Warrants in the Situation in the State of Palestine (May 20, 2024), https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/ statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applicationsarrest warrantssituationstate#:~:text=We%20submit%20that%20the%2 0crimes%20against%20humanity%20charged%20were%20committ ed,assessment%2C%20continue%20to%20this%20day [https://perma.cc/J36P-9VTE]. 3. Id. 445 Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law Vol. 57 (2025) 2024 Klatsky Endowed Lecture in Human Rights for arrest has been made is dead, Ismail Haniyeh, killed in Iran on 31 July 2024.4 These applications remain under judicial consideration, so they are sub-judice.5 So, what I will say about them, today publicly, will only reflect what the Chief Prosecutor has already publicly stated. Nothing more. So, Dean Rose and Professor Scharf if I may, and bearing in mind the award made today, I will speak about a personal journey of nearly thirty years in these fields of domestic criminal and military law, international criminal law, international humanitarian law, and human rights. My own modest pilgrimage if you will. I do not use this word pilgrimage without thought or care. I am not using the word in its strict religious sense which, as you know, means traveling to a sacred place. But in many respects, anyone’s journey in these particular legal fields forces you into direct confrontation with fundamental questions about good and evil, about mercy and justice, about reconciliation between us all and ultimately what we must aspire to be as human beings in the face of these massive crimes. What sort of world will we bequeath to our children and grandchildren? These are such difficult questions and oftentimes, like prayer itself, they remain unanswered. But I can assure you that over these thirty years, I have had glimpses of both hell and heaven on earth. And those glimpses have had a profound effect on how I see the world, who I am, and what I feel about human suffering. I have seen the most terrible things, but I have also borne witness to some of the most noble acts of sacrifice and love that I would have never seen if I had taken a different path in life. So, there it is. That is what I will talk about, fairly briefly, today. My first indirect experience of ongoing war was in 1982. It was the first war which left a very strong personal impression on me. I was still at high school, but it was one of the first wars that was covered comprehensively and most importantly contemporaneously by the media. So literally we all saw the war as it was happening. It was a conflict over a remote archipelago and British overseas territory in the South Atlantic 300 miles east 4. Thomas Mackintosh & Ruth Comerford, Hamas Political Leader Ismail Haniyeh Killed in Iran, BBC NEWS (July 31, 2024), https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ck7g0g4mk4zo [https://perma.cc/38L2-WFMT]. 5. Sub judice means a matter or case that is before a judge or court for determination. Sub Judice, BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (2d ed. 1910). 446 Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law Vol. 57 (2025) 2024 Klatsky Endowed Lecture in Human Rights of Argentina and 8,000 miles southwest of the United Kingdom.6 The 4,000 inhabitants of the Falkland Islands7 wanted to remain part of the United Kingdom in 1982;8 they still do today.9 In April of 1982, Argentina unlawfully, in breach of the United Nations Charter, invaded those islands.10 Back in 1982, the British Prime Minister, the late Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, the “Iron Lady,” decided, much to the surprise of the world which had seen the United Kingdom in decline for decades, to send a British Royal Naval and Amphibious Task Force literally to the other side of the world to retake the Falkland Islands.11 Young men fought and died on both sides of that conflict, nearly 1,000 of them altogether.12 There were 2,500 seriously injured personnel on both sides.13 Britain was victorious after ten weeks of intense fighting.14 6. Sovereignty Since the Ceasefire: The Falklands 40 Years On, U.K. PARLIAMENT: HOUSE OF LORDS LIBR., https://lordslibrary. parliament.uk/sovereignty-since-the-ceasefire-the-falklands-40years-on/#:~:text=The%20Falkland%20Isla (...truncated)