RT Article
T1 Judging communist crimes in Romania: transnational and global influences
JF International journal of transitional justice
VO 11
IS 3
SP 505
OP 524
A1 Grosescu, Raluca 1977-
LA English
YR 2017
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1843830000
AB In 2016, over 25 years after the fall of the communist regime, the Romanian Supreme Court of Justice convicted for the first time two former military officials for political crimes perpetrated in the 1950s, the harshest repressive period of the previous dictatorship. The verdicts marked a radical break with the prior legal approaches to prosecuting communist crimes in this country inasmuch as international criminal law (ICL) was now employed in order to overcome impunity. This article shows how the current shifts in Romanian jurisprudence have been built upon, and have drawn inspiration from, a recent global convergence towards the use of ICL for addressing the crimes of dictatorial regimes and the obstacles to their prosecution, such as amnesties or statutory limitations. It emphasizes the importance of noncoercive exogenous influences in enabling changes in the Romanian process of dealing with the past.
K1 Romania
K1 Communist crimes
K1 Prosecutions
K1 Retrospective justice
K1 International criminal law
DO 10.1093/ijtj/ijx016