The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC), also known as the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal (KLWCT), is a Malaysian organisation established in 2007 by the country's former prime minister

Mahathir Mohamad Mahathir bin Mohamad ( ms, محاضير بن محمد, label= Jawi, script=arab, italic=unset; ; born 10 July 1925) is a Malaysian politician, author, and physician who served as the 4th and 7th Prime Minister of Malaysia. He held the office ...

to unilaterally investigate war crimes. The KLWCC was instigated as an alternative to the

International Criminal Court The International Criminal Court (ICC or ICCt) is an intergovernmental organization and International court, international tribunal seated in The Hague, Netherlands. It is the first and only permanent international court with jurisdiction to pro ...

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...

, which Mahathir accused of bias in its selection of cases. The tribunal is not recognised by the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmoni ...

, its verdicts being only symbolic.

Governance

The governing body of the KLWCT was established to oversee and investigate complaints from victims of wars and armed conflict in relation to crimes against peace, war crimes, crimes against humanity and other like offences as recognized under international law. Members of the governance body include: *

(Chairman) * Alfred Webre *

Richard Falk Richard Anderson Falk (born November 13, 1930) is an American professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, and Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor's Chairman of the Board of Trustees. In 2004, he was listed as the aut ...

* Zacharia Yatim – retired judge of the Malaysian Federal Court * Tunku Sofiah Jewa – lawyer and scholar in international law * Salleh Buang – former Federal Counsel in the Attorney-General Chambers, Malaysia * Niloufer Bhagwat *

Shad Saleem Faruqi Professor Emeritus Datuk Dr Shad Saleem Faruqi is a Malaysian legal scholar and professor of law at the University of Malaya, currently holding the Tunku Abdul Rahman Chair as Professor of Constitutional Law. He is also the fourth holder of the T ...

– Malaysian legal academic * Michel Chossudovsky – retired academic (Global Research website)

Convictions invoking universal jurisdiction

In November 2011, the tribunal purportedly exercised universal jurisdiction to try ''in absentia'' former US President George W. Bush and former British Prime Minister

Tony Blair Sir Anthony Charles Lynton Blair (born 6 May 1953) is a British former politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1997 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007. He previously served as Leader of t ...

, convicting both for

crimes against peace A crime of aggression or crime against peace is the planning, initiation, or execution of a large-scale and serious act of aggression using state military force. The definition and scope of the crime is controversial. The Rome Statute contains an ...

because of what the tribunal concluded was the unlawful

invasion of Iraq The 2003 invasion of Iraq was a United States-led invasion of the Republic of Iraq and the first stage of the Iraq War. The invasion phase began on 19 March 2003 (air) and 20 March 2003 (ground) and lasted just over one month, including 26 ...

. In May 2012 after hearing a testimony from victims of torture at

Abu Ghraib Abu Ghraib (; ar, أبو غريب, ''Abū Ghurayb'') is a city in the Baghdad Governorate of Iraq, located just west of Baghdad's city center, or northwest of Baghdad International Airport. It has a population of 189,000 (2003). The old road ...

and Guantanamo, the Tribunal unanimously convicted ''in absentia'' the former US President George W. Bush, former US Vice President

Dick Cheney Richard Bruce Cheney ( ; born January 30, 1941) is an American politician and businessman who served as the 46th vice president of the United States from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush. He is currently the oldest living former ...

, former US Defense Secretary

Donald Rumsfeld Donald Henry Rumsfeld (July 9, 1932 – June 29, 2021) was an American politician, government official and businessman who served as Secretary of Defense from 1975 to 1977 under president Gerald Ford, and again from 2001 to 2006 under Preside ...

, former US Deputy Assistant Attorneys General

John Yoo John Choon Yoo (; born July 10, 1967) is a Korean-born American legal scholar and former government official who serves as the Emanuel S. Heller Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. Yoo became known for his legal opinions ...

and Jay Bybee, former US Attorney General

Alberto Gonzales Alberto R. Gonzales (born August 4, 1955) is an American lawyer who served as the 80th United States Attorney General, appointed in February 2005 by President George W. Bush, becoming the highest-ranking Hispanic American in executive governme ...

, and former US counselors

David Addington David Spears Addington (born January 22, 1957) is an American lawyer who was legal counsel (2001–2005) and chief of staff (2005–2009) to Vice President Dick Cheney. He was the vice president of domestic and economic policy studies at the Heri ...

and

William Haynes II William James "Jim" Haynes II (born March 30, 1958) is an American lawyer and was General Counsel of the Department of Defense during much of 43rd President George W. Bush's administration and his war on terror. Haynes resigned as general counsel ...

of conspiracy to commit war crimes, specifically torture. The Tribunal referred their findings to the chief prosecutor at the

International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordan ...

in the Hague. In November 2013, the Tribunal found

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

guilty of

genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the ...

of the

Palestinian people Palestinians ( ar, الفلسطينيون, ; he, פָלַסְטִינִים, ) or Palestinian people ( ar, الشعب الفلسطيني, label=none, ), also referred to as Palestinian Arabs ( ar, الفلسطينيين العرب, label=non ...

Legitimacy

The former

Special Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Param Cumaraswamy, called the KLWCT a private enterprise with no legal basis, and questioned its legitimacy. It does not possess a mandate from the United Nations, nor does the UN grant it recognition. It has no power to order arrests or impose sentences, and it is unclear if its verdicts are anything other than symbolic.

References

External links

The Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW)
- Affiliated organization also founded by Mahathir Mohamad {{Authority control International criminal law Opposition to the Iraq War