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Increasing the probative value for the evidence of persons with disabilities as victims of war crimes under international criminal law.

Mugabi, Ivan K 2016. Increasing the probative value for the evidence of persons with disabilities as victims of war crimes under international criminal law. Presented at: Law: Shifts and Stasis: Midlands Postgraduate Research Conference, Birmingham, UK, 29-30 April 2016.

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Abstract

On one hand the evidence of some types of disability remains of probative value as strictly a defence for diminishing the criminal responsibility of offenders. On the other hand there is hardly an equivalent probative value and incentive of proving the evidence that a considerable majority of the offended or inflicted victims were either affected or even targeted because of being persons with disabilities. This research argues that probative value of such evidence (that is to say that the aggrieved parties were victims of crime because of capitalising on their disability) should be increased by reforming the sentencing criteria through making such evidence to constitute an essential consideration to be taken into account prior to pronouncing either a higher or lower sentence in relation to war crimes and crimes against human if judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) or criminal tribunals are to use international criminal law ways that increase its protectiveness to persons with disabilities. This research is relevant following findings from disability stakeholders in times of recent armed conflicts suggesting that situations of armed conflicts create a conducive environment which enables persons or government regimes that hate individuals with disabilities with mental, intellectual or physical disabilities to subject such persons to sexual abuse, disguised acts of mass killings or even torturous other forms of experiences. According this research resolves on such evidence based assertions that contemporary situations of armed conflicts position persons with disabilities as a more vulnerable group of victimised civilian populations to either war crimes or acts associable to trends comparable to those of genocide. This presentation therefore a part of a much bigger project concerning rethinking ways of using international criminal law finding justice for persons with disabilities during time of armed conflicts. In this context attention is centered at rethinking of procedures of international criminal law might be used to develop an approach that makes evidence of the fact that a considerable majority of the affected victims were persons with disabilities. According without creating new crimes, revisiting these sentencing rules for those crimes can increase the probative value of evidence of such facts whenever they relate to commission of such crimes against these vulnerable victims.

Item Type: Conference or Workshop Item (Speech)
Date Type: Completion
Status: Unpublished
Schools: Law
Cardiff Centre for Crime, Law and Justice (CCLJ)
Cardiff Centre for Ethics, Law and Society (CCELS)
Subjects: K Law > K Law (General)
Last Modified: 04 Aug 2022 01:47
URI: https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/110412

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