International Crimes or Ordinary Crimes? The ‘Dual Classification of the Facts’ as an Interpretive Method

Many domestic courts, when prosecuting atrocities committed in their dictatorial or warring past, have been facing a real dilemma: whether to classify the facts as ordinary crimes, foreseen by the domestic legislation prior to the facts and therefore consistent with the principles of legality and non-retroactivity, or as international crimes, which do not grant the same compatibility but allow to overcome the obstacles to prosecution imposed by statutory limitations and amnesties. The paper focuses on an interpretative method developed by several Latin American tribunals to overcome this impasse, by means of a combined application of the two criminal categories. Although this ‘dual classification of facts’ apparently solves the dilemma, it is flawed from both a methodological and substantive perspective. After scrutinising these problematic issues, the paper analyses some alternative interpretative proposals that may also allow to avoid impunity, but without impinging on fundamental principles of modern criminal law systems.