Legitimacy of Amnesties in International Law

Transition to democracy has always been faced a lot of challenges. One of these challenges is the prosecution and punishment of the prior regime’s officials or reconciliation and granting amnesty in return for transferring power to new government. In addition, the occurrence of internal conflicts and the struggle to end them, call for necessity of granting amnesties in order to encouraging opponents to lay down their arms. In this article, with regard to the ambiguity of international rules as to the legitimacy of amnesty, I seek to examine the legitimacy of granted amnesties in international arena and explain the constraints and prohibitions that international law applies in this respect, through a thorough examination of experience of different countries which, in past, has been in process of transition and examination of existing international rules and documents and way of reaction of international organs to it.