A/HRC/27/56 51. “High impact” cases. Practice in some jurisdictions suggests prioritizing cases which are likely to influence public opinion positively contributes to raising awareness about various aspects of past violations, sends important signals, or galvanizes different forms of international support. A particular subset of this universe is “leading” cases, that is, those aiming to establish important legal precedents and/or to motivate changes in legislation. 52. The Simón case in Argentina, for example, managed to pave the way for fullyfledged prosecution in the country after years of stalemate caused by impunity laws introduced after the junta trials in the 1980s. In 2001, in a case filed by a human rights organization, a federal judge held the Full Stop and Due Obedience Laws unconstitutional as they were incompatible with international human rights obligations of Argentina. The Simón decision was subsequently affirmed by the Federal Court of Appeals of Buenos Aires and many cases were reopened as a consequence. In August 2003, new legislation25 declared the Laws null and void. Finally, in July 2005, the Supreme Court affirmed the Federal Court of Appeal’s decision in Simón and validated the new law. 53. There is much to commend in the idea of prosecutors having a sense of the potential impact of prosecuting a particular case or the make-up of a whole set of cases. However, the eventual impact is heavily contingent on, among other things, how the particular case is in fact decided, and on the jurisprudential fate of that decision. Furthermore, the judgement on whether a given case will turn out to be “leading” in itself depends on an underlying conception of what would be prosecutorially useful overall. If there are any criteria that would allow for “high-impact” cases to be recognized, not only retrospectively but also prospectively, it is those criteria which would form the core of a prosecutorial strategy, rather than the notion of “high impact”. 54. “Most serious” violations. The strategic consideration of prioritizing the prosecution of the “most serious” violations usually refers to those leading to loss of life or to serious violations of physical integrity. Crimes against humanity, genocide and war crimes, firmly entrenched at the international level, including in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court,26 as the most serious crimes, also form the core of judgements about gravity at the national level through their incorporation into domestic penal law. 55. The use of this prioritization criterion has a long history. It was used in the successful junta trials in Argentina in 1985, which prioritized cases of summary executions, forced disappearances and torture perpetrated as part of a systematic plan crafted and implemented by former junta leaders. It has also been used in recent domestic prosecutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guatemala and Uganda. Prosecutors in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for example, have appealed to this notion to focus on crimes of sexual violence. 56. Prioritizing the most serious violations presents the clear advantage of acknowledging the gravity of the most outrageous crimes, distinguishing them from lesser ones and underlining the importance of their clarification and the punishment of their perpetrators. 57. The term “most serious crimes”, however, is not unproblematic as the strategy’s organizing criterion, mainly for three reasons: (a) There are lingering questions about the boundaries of the “gravity” or “seriousness” criterion. The trend in favour of incorporating into national law criminal categories derived from international law is important, but does not fully settle remaining 25 26 Congress Law 25779. Art. 5. 11