International Cooperation for the Repression of Core Crimes. What Role for the UNTOC?

The burden of ensuring the repression of crimes that shock the conscience of mankind lies primarily with States. National prosecution of core crimes, however, relies heavily on inter-State cooperation. The obligation to cooperate in order to bring to justice the authors of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity may well be considered as a corollary of the erga omnes obligation to investigate and punish these crimes. The international instruments devoted to the repression of core crimes, however, fail to provide a sufficient regulatory framework for horizontal cooperation in this field, leaving it to States to make use of the tools established under domestic law, or provided by other existing treaties. The UNTOC and its Supplementing Protocols may prove useful in this framework. Even though these instruments were not expressly designed to tackle core crimes, some of the offences covered by them may indeed qualify as crimes against humanity or war crimes, if assisted by the ‘contextual element’ which characterizes the latter crimes. The UNTOC, moreover, can be used to further the prosecution of criminal groups that aid the commission of core crimes for profit.