A/HRC/36/50/Add.1 for a full investigation of the facts and a reliable identification of those presumed responsible. Thus, at least judicial investigations can be completed.27 41. A stronger way of mitigating the effects of amnesties has been to argue that some categories of violations cannot fall under their purview, independently of how particular amnesty laws define their subject matter. This applies most clearly in the case of “continuous crimes” which are not simply those in which an instantaneous action has an effect extended in time but those in which the perpetrator sustains the criminal state either through action or wilful failure to correct it. Kidnappings and disappearances are the prototypical examples of continuous crimes. Courts committed to the fight against impunity have fixed on the ongoing nature of the crimes to block the application in these cases of temporally limited amnesty laws. 42. The notion of a continuous crime has also been important in coping with statutes of limitation. To the extent that a crime has not ceased (for example, the disappeared person has not returned, and his or her body has not been found), no statute of limitation is applicable to it.28 Resources to deal with issues of prescription and non-retroactivity have also been found by courts committed to human rights in the customary international law prohibition of applying statutory limitations to crimes against humanity,29 even when those crimes had not been domestically codified at the time of commission, provided that the relevant domestic common crimes can be argued to also constitute crimes against humanity.30 2. Prosecutorial strategies 43. Transitional justice has contributed to the realization of the right to justice through the articulation of prosecutorial strategies, something that prosecutors confronting common crimes in ordinary jurisdictions never develop, as they typically stand under the obligation to consider cases as they come. By contrast, in the typical transitional situation the number and types of violations vastly outstrip the State’s capacity to take in all cases that might be presented at any one time and even over time. A strategy is then necessary in order to rationalize the deployment of scarce resources and to maximize the impact of those efforts. 44. The Special Rapporteur devoted an entire report to this topic, 31 which examines the benefits and drawbacks of prioritizing cases that satisfy various criteria, including easy cases (“low-hanging fruit”), high impact cases, most serious crimes, the most responsible and cases that have the potential to dismantle criminal networks, and argues that in transitional situations the latter is particularly important. The point to emphasize is that this expertise has been developed, and that prioritization strategies are now available as tools to enhance the effectiveness of transitional justice prosecutions. 3. Diversification of venues 45. National courts have been (and remain) the primary sites for prosecutions. Yet innovation has been needed as many national courts were unwilling or unable to undertake them. 46. The ad hoc international courts (the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Tribunal for Rwanda) were created to respond to specific instances of massive violations of human rights and international humanitarian law. The International Criminal Court emerged later on as an expression of the aspiration for a permanent international court to address the most serious international crimes. 27 28 29 30 31 10 Poblete Córdova, Rol No. 469-98, 9 September 1998, Supreme Court of Chile, Second Chamber, especially paras. 6 ff. Vásquez Martínez y Superby Jeldres, Rol No. 559-04, 13 December 2006, Supreme Court of Chile, Second Chamber. Arancibia Clavel, Enrique Lautaro s/homicidio calificado y asociación ilícita y otros, A.533.XXXVIII, Supreme Court of Argentina, especially paras. 28-33. Pablo Parenti, “Argentina”, in Jurisprudencia Latinoamericana Sobre Derecho Penal Internacional, Kai Ambos and Ezequiel Malarino, eds. (Berlin, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, 2008), p. 26. A/HRC/27/56.