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The Special Tribunal for Lebanon: Introductory Note

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 June 2008

JEAN D'ASPREMONT  and
ANNEMARIEKE VERMEER-KÜNZLI
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Extract

On 30 May 2007 the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1757(2007), creating the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) to try those responsible for the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri, which also claimed the life of twenty-two other persons. Following sensitive and unsuccessful discussions about the location of the seat of the tribunal, the government of the Netherlands informed the UN Secretary-General in September 2007 that it was favourably disposed to hosting the tribunal and, after three months of negotiations, signed, on 21 December 2007, in accordance with paragraph 1(b) of the resolution, a Headquarters Agreement enabling the seat of the STL to be in the Netherlands.

Type
CURRENT LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS
Information
Leiden Journal of International Law , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , June 2008 , pp. 483 - 484
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation of the Leiden Journal of International Law 2008

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References

1. UN Doc. S/RES/1757 (2007).

2. ‘Special Tribunal for Lebanon to Be Based at The Hague’, UN Secretariat press release, UN Doc. SG/SM/11347.

3. According to commentators, Art. II of the Agreement endows the SCSL with international legal personality. See in particular Zsuzsanna Deen-Racsmány, ‘Prosecutor v. Taylor: The Status of the Special Court for Sierra Leone and Its Implications for Immunity’, (2005) 18 LJIL 299–322.

4. See, e.g., Art. 7 of the Statute, which endowed the Special Tribunal with the capacity to enter into agreements with states ‘as may be necessary for the exercise of its functions and for the operation of the Tribunal’. One may note that this provision was not subject to any amendment in the statute ‘enacted’ by Resolution 1757(2007).

5. For shorter analyses in the immediate aftermath of the creation of the tribunal, see the various contributions published in the Journal of International Criminal Justice, (2007) 5, 1061–214.