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Full-Text Articles in Law

Israel, Palestine And The Icc., Maria Isidora Thomas Sep 2015

Israel, Palestine And The Icc., Maria Isidora Thomas

Maria A Thomas Mrs

Academic Research with Professor Maximo Langer about the recent incorporation of Palestine to the ICC and the possible effects on its relations with Israel and the ongoing conflict.


Complexity And Efficiency At International Criminal Courts, 29 Emory Int'l L. Rev. 1 (2014), Stuart K. Ford Apr 2015

Complexity And Efficiency At International Criminal Courts, 29 Emory Int'l L. Rev. 1 (2014), Stuart K. Ford

Stuart Ford

One of the most persistent criticisms of international criminal tribunals has been that they cost too much and take too long. In response, this Article presents a new approach that utilizes two concepts: complexity and efficiency. The first half of this Article proposes a method for measuring the complexity of criminal trials and then uses that method to measure the complexity of the trials conducted at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). The results are striking. Even the least complex ICTY trial is more complex than the average criminal trial in the United States, and the most …


Exploring Critical Issues In Religious Genocide: Case Studies Of Violence In Tibet, Iraq And Gujarat, 40 Case W. Res. J. Int'l L. 163 (2008), Robert Petit, Stuart K. Ford, Neha Jain Apr 2015

Exploring Critical Issues In Religious Genocide: Case Studies Of Violence In Tibet, Iraq And Gujarat, 40 Case W. Res. J. Int'l L. 163 (2008), Robert Petit, Stuart K. Ford, Neha Jain

Stuart Ford

No abstract provided.


Legal Processes Of Change: Article 2(4) And The Vienna Convention On The Law Of Treaties, 4 J. Conf. & Sec. L. 75 (1999), Stuart Ford Apr 2015

Legal Processes Of Change: Article 2(4) And The Vienna Convention On The Law Of Treaties, 4 J. Conf. & Sec. L. 75 (1999), Stuart Ford

Stuart Ford

No abstract provided.


How Leadership In International Criminal Law Is Shifting From The United States To Europe And Asia: An Analysis Of Spending On And Contributions To International Criminal Courts, 55 St. Louis U. L.J. 953 (2011), Stuart K. Ford Apr 2015

How Leadership In International Criminal Law Is Shifting From The United States To Europe And Asia: An Analysis Of Spending On And Contributions To International Criminal Courts, 55 St. Louis U. L.J. 953 (2011), Stuart K. Ford

Stuart Ford

No abstract provided.


Is The Failure To Respond Appropriately To A Natural Disaster A Crime Against Humanity - The Responsibility To Protect And Individual Criminal Responsibility In The Aftermath Of Cyclone Nargis, 38 Denv. J. Int'l L. & Pol'y 227 (2010), Stuart K. Ford Apr 2015

Is The Failure To Respond Appropriately To A Natural Disaster A Crime Against Humanity - The Responsibility To Protect And Individual Criminal Responsibility In The Aftermath Of Cyclone Nargis, 38 Denv. J. Int'l L. & Pol'y 227 (2010), Stuart K. Ford

Stuart Ford

On May 2 and 3, 2008, Cyclone Nargis struck Myanmar, devastating large portions of the Irrawaddy Delta and creating the potential for a massive humanitarian crisis. Yet, the Myanmar government rejected aid from some countries, limited the amount of aid entering the country to a fraction of what was needed, and strictly controlled how that aid was distributed The United Nations and many governments criticized Myanmar's response to the Cyclone as inadequate and inhumane, and senior politicians from a number of countries discussed whether the situation justified invoking the "responsibility to protect" doctrine This article explores several questions, including: (1) …


Fairness And Politics At The Icty: Evidence From The Indictments, 39 N.C. J. Int'l L. & Com. Reg. 45 (2013), Stuart K. Ford Apr 2015

Fairness And Politics At The Icty: Evidence From The Indictments, 39 N.C. J. Int'l L. & Com. Reg. 45 (2013), Stuart K. Ford

Stuart Ford

No abstract provided.


The International Criminal Court And Proximity To The Scene Of The Crime: Does The Rome Statute Permit All Of The Icc's Trials To Take Place At Local Or Regional Chambers?, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 715 (2010), Stuart K. Ford Apr 2015

The International Criminal Court And Proximity To The Scene Of The Crime: Does The Rome Statute Permit All Of The Icc's Trials To Take Place At Local Or Regional Chambers?, 43 J. Marshall L. Rev. 715 (2010), Stuart K. Ford

Stuart Ford

No abstract provided.


Osce National Minority Rights In The United States: The Limits Of Conflict Prevention, 23 Suffolk Transnat'l L. Rev. 1 (1999), Stuart K. Ford Apr 2015

Osce National Minority Rights In The United States: The Limits Of Conflict Prevention, 23 Suffolk Transnat'l L. Rev. 1 (1999), Stuart K. Ford

Stuart Ford

No abstract provided.


A Social Psychology Model Of The Perceived Legitimacy Of International Criminal Courts: Implications For The Success Of Transitional Justice Mechanisms, 45 Vand. J. Transnat'l L. 405 (2012), Stuart K. Ford Apr 2015

A Social Psychology Model Of The Perceived Legitimacy Of International Criminal Courts: Implications For The Success Of Transitional Justice Mechanisms, 45 Vand. J. Transnat'l L. 405 (2012), Stuart K. Ford

Stuart Ford

There is a large body of literature arguing that positive perceived legitimacy is a critical factor in the success of international criminal courts, and that courts can be engineered in such a way that they will be positively perceived by adjusting factors such as their institutional structure and outreach efforts. But in many situations the perceived legitimacy of international criminal courts has almost nothing to do with these factors. This Article takes the latest research in social psychology and applies it to survey data about perceptions of international criminal courts in order to understand how affected populations form attitudes about …


Meta-Theory Of International Criminal Procedure: Vindicating The Rule Of Law, Jens David Ohlin Dec 2014

Meta-Theory Of International Criminal Procedure: Vindicating The Rule Of Law, Jens David Ohlin

Jens David Ohlin

International criminal procedure is in a second phase of development, moving beyond the common law/civil law dichotomy and searching for its sui generis theory. The standard line is that international criminal procedure has an instrumental value: it services the general goals of international criminal justice and allows punishment for violations of substantive international criminal law. However, international criminal procedure also has an important and often overlooked intrinsic value not reducible to its instrumental value: it vindicates the Rule of Law. This vindication is performed by adjudicating allegations of criminal violations that occurred during periods of anarchy characterized by the absence …


The Arab Spring's Four Seasons: International Protections And The Sovereignty Problem, Jillian Blake Jan 2014

The Arab Spring's Four Seasons: International Protections And The Sovereignty Problem, Jillian Blake

Jillian Blake

In December 2010, public demonstrations erupted throughout the Middle East against autocratic regimes, igniting a regional political transformation known as the Arab Spring. Depending on events, modern international criminal and humanitarian law provided certain protections to vulnerable populations. However, international law did not provide a uniform degree of protection to civilians and combatants who faced similar circumstances. This Article argues for a uniform standard of protections for all populations affected by armed conflict, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. It evaluates each of five major Arab Spring uprisings (Tunisia, Bahrain, Egypt, Syria, and Libya) and describes the legal protections that …


Should Domestic Courts Prosecute Genocide? Examining The Trial Of Efrain Rios Montt, Jillian Blake Jan 2014

Should Domestic Courts Prosecute Genocide? Examining The Trial Of Efrain Rios Montt, Jillian Blake

Jillian Blake

In a highly publicized 2013 case, Efraín Ríos Montt, the de facto leader of Guatemala from 1982–1983, was ordered to stand trial for genocide in Guatemala for the deaths of at least 1771 Ixil Mayan people during the most violent period of the country’s thirty-six-year-long civil war. The trial was historic; Ríos Montt became the first former head of state to be tried for genocide in his home country. This Article, using the Guatemalan trial as an example, asks: should domestic courts prosecute genocide? The Article argues that domestic prosecution of genocide is not inherently negative or positive, but could …


Litigating For Justice: Defense Work At The International Criminal Tribunal For Rwanda (Ictr), Beth S. Lyons Jan 2014

Litigating For Justice: Defense Work At The International Criminal Tribunal For Rwanda (Ictr), Beth S. Lyons

Beth S. Lyons

Fair trial issues are usually a key part of any defense strategy – at trial or on appeal – but they serve an additional function at the international tribunals. They provide a “lever” for finding the truth. Fair trial guarantees – such as full disclosure of exculpatory material and other principles - make for truth telling; and they mitigate against the writing/re-writing history through judgments. Where there are fair trial violations, the likelihood of an accurate historical account, based on the evidence, is virtually non-existent. Hence, the struggle for fairness is a struggle for the truths.


A Spectrum Of International Criminal Procedure: Shifting Patterns Of Power Distribution, Jessica S. Peake Sep 2013

A Spectrum Of International Criminal Procedure: Shifting Patterns Of Power Distribution, Jessica S. Peake

Jessica S Peake

International criminal procedure is characterized by a fundamental structural shift in the allocation of power between the actors in a criminal trial – the judges, Prosecution and defense - away from that traditionally ascribed under an adversarial system and towards the power distribution structure more common to the inquisitorial system. By looking at the Statutes and RPEs of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), it is possible to identify varying degrees of power shifts in each court: across each we see a …


Schisms In Humanitarianism: The Khmer Rouge Tribunal's First Hearing, Mahdev Mohan Jul 2013

Schisms In Humanitarianism: The Khmer Rouge Tribunal's First Hearing, Mahdev Mohan

Mahdev MOHAN

Mass atrocity invokes humanitarian impulses in all of us. But when a genocidaire casts himself as a victim, the right response is less straightforward. This article analyzes a recent hearing of one of Cambodia's most feared Khmer Rouge cadres who stands trial before a newly established hybrid tribunal and suggests the consequences of responding to war crime trials with polemics rather than principle.


Reconstituting The “Un-Person”: The Khmer Krom And The Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Mahdev Mohan Jul 2013

Reconstituting The “Un-Person”: The Khmer Krom And The Khmer Rouge Tribunal, Mahdev Mohan

Mahdev Mohan

Despite the grand promise of victim participation at the ongoing trials of Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (“ECCC”), this article notes the plight of an undeserved ethnic community, the members of which have become forgotten victims of genocide. The Article argues that if the ECCC’s trials are to have any resonance for the Khmer Krom, its affiliates and victims’ lawyers should avoid “othering” Khmer Krom victims of genocide, and instead adopt ethnographic approaches to lawyering that seek to ascertain communal desires for vindication.


International Criminal Justice, The Gotovina Judgment And The Making Of Refugees, Gregor Noll, Rosemary Byrne Jan 2013

International Criminal Justice, The Gotovina Judgment And The Making Of Refugees, Gregor Noll, Rosemary Byrne

Gregor Noll

In this paper, we shall present two interlocking arguments, both drawing on a distinction between formal and substantive models of justice. In a first step, we depart from the accepted presumptions about the formal delivery of international criminal justice and its capacities to deliver peace and security, to consider how alternative views on the legitimacy of international criminal tribunals and retributive justice present some far more unsettling perspectives about the performance and promise of these nascent courts. If these issues are taken seriously, then one should reconsider whether international trials are able to deliver the broader forms of substantive justice …


The Effects Of The Lubanga Case On Understanding And Preventing Child Soldiering, Mark A. Drumbl Dec 2012

The Effects Of The Lubanga Case On Understanding And Preventing Child Soldiering, Mark A. Drumbl

Mark A. Drumbl

On March 14, 2012, a trial chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) convicted Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a rebel leader from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), for child-soldier-related crimes. Several months later, Lubanga was sentenced to a prison term of fourteen years. On August 7, 2012, an ICC trial chamber issued its decision regarding the principles and procedures to be applied to reparations in the Lubanga case. This Article unpacks the relationships between the Lubanga proceedings and how the international community conceptualizes, and strives to prevent, child soldiering. This Article argues that the Lubanga proceedings reinforce, and incubate, …


The Icc Against Entrenching Impunity: The African Tenth Anniversary View’, Lucky Michael Mgimba Mr. Jun 2012

The Icc Against Entrenching Impunity: The African Tenth Anniversary View’, Lucky Michael Mgimba Mr.

Lucky Michael Mgimba

For most of the 20th century the International legal community with Africa Inclusive worked towards the creation of a permanent international criminal court. Upon which the goal of establishing a permanent institution to prosecute the most egregious violations of international criminal law culminated with the formation of the International criminal Court (ICC). As it enters its Tenth anniversary, the ICC vested with the power to prosecute the four categories of offences: the crime of Genocide, Crimes against Humanity, War Crimes, and the Crime of Aggression which are in essence the most serious crimes of international concern was indeed a reverie …


Mapping Expansive Uses Of Human Dignity In International Criminal Law, J.Benton Heath Jan 2012

Mapping Expansive Uses Of Human Dignity In International Criminal Law, J.Benton Heath

J.Benton Heath

International criminal law (ICL) makes frequent reference to the concept of human dignity, which also plays a central role in human rights law. While many of these invocations occur in the context of torture and cruel treatment, a handful of cases have used human dignity more expansively to justify punishment for hate speech and other crimes. In this chapter, I argue that such expansive invocations of human dignity fill gaps in substantive criminal law, motivate tribunals toward broad interpretations of the law, may serve to 'trump' competing claims, and provide an argument for overcoming strict applications of the principle of …


Human Dignity At Trial: Hard Cases And Broad Concepts In International Criminal Law, J.Benton Heath Jan 2012

Human Dignity At Trial: Hard Cases And Broad Concepts In International Criminal Law, J.Benton Heath

J.Benton Heath

Broad and indeterminate invocations of human dignity play a sporadic but powerful role in the adjudication of international criminal law (ICL). Drawing on detailed case studies, I argue that the concept of dignity enables courts to fill gaps in the substantive criminal law, justify expansive interpretations, resolve conflicts between competing rights and values, and potentially overcome the requirements of strict legality. These features enable judges to reach important and sometimes morally compelling conclusions. But expansive uses of human dignity come into tension with rule-of-law principles, and they challenge the self-understanding of ICL as a regime of limited subject-matter jurisdiction. This …


Too Rough A Justice: The Ethiopia-Eritrea Claims Commission And Civil Liability For Claims For Rape Under International Law, Ryan S. Lincoln Jan 2012

Too Rough A Justice: The Ethiopia-Eritrea Claims Commission And Civil Liability For Claims For Rape Under International Law, Ryan S. Lincoln

Ryan S. Lincoln

The developments in international law prohibiting rape during armed conflict have grown at a rapid pace in recent decades. Whereas rape had long been considered an inevitable by-product of armed conflict, evolution in international humanitarian law (IHL) has relegated this conception mostly to the past. The work of international criminal tribunals has been at the forefront of this change, developing the specific elements of the international crime of rape, and helping to change the perception of rape in international law. Violations of IHL, however, also give rise to civil liability. Despite the advances with respect to rape made in the …


Superior Responsibility, René Värk Jan 2012

Superior Responsibility, René Värk

René Värk

No abstract provided.


Delegitimizing Aggression: First Steps And False Starts After The First World War, Kirsten Sellars Dr Jan 2012

Delegitimizing Aggression: First Steps And False Starts After The First World War, Kirsten Sellars Dr

Dr Kirsten Sellars

The interwar years marked the movement in international law towards the prohibition of aggressive war. Yet a notable feature of the 1920s and 1930s, despite suggestions to the contrary at the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals, was the absence of legal milestones marking the advance towards the criminalization of aggression. Lloyd George’s proposal to arraign the ex-Kaiser for starting the First World War came to nothing. Resolutions mentioning the ‘international crime’ of aggression, such as the draft Treaty for Mutual Assistance and the Geneva Protocol, were never ratified. And the Kellogg-Briand Pact, while renouncing war ‘as an instrument of national policy’, …


Joint Criminal Enterprise And The Jurisdiction Of The Extraordinary Chambers In The Courts Of Cambodia, Randle C. Defalco Jan 2010

Joint Criminal Enterprise And The Jurisdiction Of The Extraordinary Chambers In The Courts Of Cambodia, Randle C. Defalco

Randle C DeFalco

No abstract provided.


Jurisdiction And Admissibility Before The International Criminal Court, Joseph Davids Jan 2009

Jurisdiction And Admissibility Before The International Criminal Court, Joseph Davids

Joseph Davids

This paper analyses issues of jurisdiction and admissibility before the ICC in cases of self-referrals. The paper looks to the rules of procedure, the treaty and pragmatic considerations in an attempt to predict how the court would rule where a defendant challenges admissibility in a case that was self-referred but the referring State begins an investigation in to the crime.


System Criminality In International Law: Conclusions And Outlook, André Nollkaemper, Harmen Van Der Wilt Jan 2009

System Criminality In International Law: Conclusions And Outlook, André Nollkaemper, Harmen Van Der Wilt

André Nollkaemper

No abstract provided.


System Criminality In International Law: Introduction, André Nollkaemper Dec 2008

System Criminality In International Law: Introduction, André Nollkaemper

André Nollkaemper

No abstract provided.


The Clash Of Commitments At The International Criminal Court, Tom Ginsburg Dec 2008

The Clash Of Commitments At The International Criminal Court, Tom Ginsburg

Tom Ginsburg

This paper considers the International Criminal Court’s recent indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in light of what it characterizes as a clash of commitments. Weak states sign on to the ICC to commit to prosecuting their opponents and so need relatively certain prosecution; the ICC has a similar interest in assuring that prosecutions go forward without regard to political considerations. Yet sometimes states and the international community need to make another form of commitment, namely a commitment not to prosecute. These competing imperatives cannot easily co-exist, and the indictment of al-Bashir brings them into direct conflict. The long delay …