ABSTRACT
The international criminal tribunals set up for the former Yugoslavia in 1993 and for Rwanda in 1994 were major steps in this direction and were further underpinned in 1998 by the adoption by the United Nations of the founding treaty of the International Criminal Court, as a permanent body with universal jurisdiction for judging those accused of genocide, crimes against humanity, crimes of aggression and war crimes. The World Conference on Human Rights held in Vienna in 1993 supported this line of thinking by adopting the text of a Declaration urging the United Nations to step up its efforts to combat impunity and a Programme of Action. The right of victims and their families to truth and reparation was formally recognised in the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 2006.
