The right to privacy became an international human right before it was a nationally well-established fundamental right. When it was created in the years after World War II, state constitutions protected only aspects of privacy such as the inviolability of the home and of correspondence. This article analyses how the integral guarantee-the right to privacy or to respect of one's private life-came into existence. It traces the drafting history on the global and the European level and argues that there was no conscious decision to create an integral guarantee. The right's potential was dramatically underestimated at the time of its creation. K E Y W OR D S : humans rights, right to privacy, Universal Declaration on Human Rights, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, European Convention on Human Rights 1 See Drafting Committee on an International Bill of Human Rights, Documented Outline, 11 June 1947, E/CN.4/AC.1/3/Add.1 ('Drafting Commission Documented Outline') at 78-94. 2 See, for example, United States Constitution Amendment IV (right to be secure against 'unreasonable searches and seizures' of one's house, papers, effects and body).
Literature on transitional justice routinely assumes positive effects of international criminal proceedings on reconciliation processes. Expressions of remorse and apology before international criminal tribunals are attributed a key role in the scenario. This view is influenced by the role of remorse and apology in human dispute resolution in general and, particularly, in domestic criminal proceedings. That Western societies have become friendlier towards remorse and apology in the last decades ç in the age of the 'new culture of apology' ç might also play a certain role. This article argues, however, that there is a substantive gap between the assumed and the actual role of apology and remorse in international criminal proceedings. Analysis of the practice of international criminal tribunals reveals that cases of sincere remorse or apologies among high ranks ç that would be of particular value for reconciliation processes ç are hardly existent, and fakery of remorse is fostered by judicial practice. Additionally, positive effects of remorse and apology in the context of macro crimes tend to be overestimated. The article attributes the gap between the assumed and the actual role partly to the wish to avoid facing the void.Ã Professor of International Law, University of Zurich. My special thanks goes to my collaborator De¤ sire¤ e Dittes for her thoughtful remarks.
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