Law Commons^™

Advocating Socio-Economic Justice: Some Experiences Of The Icc-India Campaign And The Potential For A Law Clinic, Saumya Uma

Dr. Saumya Uma

Difference In The Law Of Weaponry When Applied To Non-International Armed Conflict, William Boothby

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

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 …

Peace Through Justice?: Evaluating The International Criminal Court, Katherine Ann Snitzer

International Studies Honors Projects

This thesis looks at the recently created International Criminal Court (ICC) and its early cases in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Sudan. The central questions are: how does the Court impact peace building in the war-torn countries whose cases it handles? And is there a tension between peace and justice in these cases? The case studies demonstrate that while rhetoric linking peace and justice dominates the Court, the ICC is ill equipped to address the complex interaction of the two in specific countries. The Court’s narrow mandate and powers mean that practical and political concerns dominate its decision-making …

Importance Of Effective Investigation Of Sexual Violence And Gender-Based Crimes At The International Criminal Court, Susana Sácouto, Katherine Cleary

Susana L. SáCouto

No abstract provided.

The Gravity Threshold Of The International Criminal Court , Susana Sacouto, Katherine Cleary

Susana L. SáCouto

No abstract provided.

The Gravity Threshold Of The International Criminal Court, Susana Sácouto, Katherine A. Cleary

Susana L. SáCouto

From its inception, the world's first permanent International Criminal Court ("ICC" or "Court") was envisioned as a body that would preside over only those cases of most serious concern to the international community as a whole. Thus, the Court's subject matter jurisdiction is limited to the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. Moreover, Article 17(1)(d) of the Rome Statute provides that the Court shall determine that a case is inadmissible where the case is not of sufficient gravity to justify further action by the Court. This so-called "gravity threshold" has played a …

Book Review, International Organizations: Politics, Law, Practice (2010), Timothy L. Meyer

Scholarly Works

This essay reviews Ian Hurd’s International Organizations: Politics, Law, Practice. International law and international relations scholars are increasingly interested in the variation in the structures and powers of international organizations, as well as how that variation affects state decisions to comply with international law. Hurd’s book offers a nuanced overview of the relationship between the legal powers of international organizations and the political contexts in which they operate. The book uses eight case studies, including the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the International Court of Justice, and the International Labor Organization, to assess how different political environments and institutional …

Sham Of The Moral Court? Testimony Sold As The Spoils Of War, Mark Findlay, Sylvia Ngane

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This paper analyses the critical influences on witness-based truth-telling for judicial decision-making in the international criminal tribunals. The judicial fixation on witness testimony reflects the weight and legitimacy given to personal testimony before international courts. This weight must be balanced by the awareness that a witness may provide false testimony intentionally, or may be coaxed by third parties to provide such testimony, as has been evidenced recently before the ICC. If witness testimony is tainted then its capacity to endorse the truth-finding function of the court is compromised. As a consequence the ability to assert that the tribunal is a …

Building Trust In East Jerusalem: Housing Issues In The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Adam N. Schupack, James I. Pearce

Adam N Schupack

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been one of the world’s most contentious issues for more than half a century, and Jerusalem is at its center. Though frequently treated as one subject of dispute between Israelis and Palestinians, “Jerusalem” actually comprises a complex set of legal, political, and social issues. This Article examines one of them, the issue of housing in East Jerusalem, with a particular focus on whether some of the housing policies in that area violate international law. Believing that housing as a discrete topic can illuminate the nuances and complexities of the broader conflict without becoming too unmanageable or …

Is Complementarity The Right Approach For The International Criminal Court's Crime Of Aggression?, Jennifer -. Trahan

Jennifer - Trahan

At the first Review Conference on the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, the Assembly of States Parties to the ICC adopted an amendment defining the crime of aggression and conditions for the ICC’s exercise of jurisdiction over it. Because the definition will be incorporated into the existing framework of the Rome Statute, the crime will be subject to the “complementarity” provision contained therein. That provision specifies that a case becomes “inadmissible” before the ICC if there are national investigations and/or prosecutions (unless there is unwillingness or inability to investigate or prosecute). By contrast, the relationship between national courts, …

Choosing To Prosecute: Expressive Selection At The International Criminal Court, Margaret M. Deguzman

Michigan Journal of International Law

The International Criminal Court (ICC), an institution in its infancy, has had occasion to make only a relatively small number of decisions about which defendants and which crimes to prosecute. But virtually every choice it has made has been attacked: the first defendant, Thomas Lubanga, was not senior enough and the crimes with which he was charged-war crimes involving the use of child soldiers-were not serious enough; the Court should have investigated British soldiers for war crimes committed in Iraq; the ICC should not be prosecuting only rebel perpetrators in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo; the Court's focus …

Updates From The International And Internationalized Criminal Courts, Claire Grandison, Benjamin Watson, Erin Neff, Sara Harlow, Michelle Flash

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Victim Participation At The International Criminal Court And The Extraordinary Chambers In The Courts Of Cambodia: A Feminist Project, Susana Sacouto

Michigan Journal of Gender & Law

The question this Article poses is whether victim participation--one of the most recent developments in international criminal law--has increased the visibility of the actual lived experience of survivors of sexual and gender-based violence in the context of war, mass violence, or repression. Under the Rome Statute, victims of the world's most serious crimes were given unprecedented rights to participate in proceedings before the Court. Nearly a decade later, a similar scheme was established to allow victims to participate as civil parties in the proceedings before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC or Extraordinary Chambers), a court created …

Africa, Mark J. Calaguas

Mark J Calaguas

The Africa Committee's contribution to the 2011 Year-in-Review issue of the American Bar Association Section of International Law's quarterly journal, The International Lawyer.

International Decision, International Criminal Court, Judgment On The Appeal Of The Republic Of Kenya Against Pre-Trial Chamber Decision Denying Inadmissibility Of The Kenya Situation, Charles Chernor Jalloh

Faculty Publications

A fundamental pillar of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) is Article 17, which enshrines the complementarity principle – the idea that ICC jurisdiction will only be triggered when states fail to act to prosecute genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes within their national courts or in circumstances where they prove unwilling and or unable to do so. The problem is that, as shown in this case report in the American Journal of International Law on the first ICC Appeals Chamber ruling regarding a state party’s objection to the court’s assertion of jurisdiction over its nationals, …

Africa And The International Criminal Court: Collision Course Or Cooperation?, Charles Chernor Jalloh

Faculty Publications

The relationship between Africa and the International Criminal Court (ICC) was cordial for many years. However, since the decisions of the United Nations Security Council to invoke its special powers to impose the Court on Sudan and Libya, African States acting through their regional body - the African Union - have adopted numerous resolutions claiming that the ICC maybe impeding, rather than assisting, their efforts to restore peace in several ongoing conflicts and transitional situations on the continent. In this invited lecture, given as the first RJR Distinguished Visiting Professor Lecture at North Carolina Central University School of Law in …

Victim Participation At The International Criminal Court And The Extraordinary Chambers In The Courts Of Cambodia: A Feminist Project?, Susana Sacouto

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

INTRODUCTION: Over the last couple of decades, and particularly since 1998, incredible advances have been made in the effort to end impunity for sexual and gender-based violence committed in the context of war, mass violence, or repression. Before this, crimes committed exclusively or disproportionately against women and girls during conflict or periods of mass violence were either largely ignored, or at most, treated as secondary to other crimes. However, evidence of the large-scale and systematic use of rape in conflicts over the last two decades helped create unprecedented levels of awareness of sexual violence as a method of war and …

Politics And Prosecutions, From Katherine Fite To Fatou Bensouda, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

Based on the Katherine B. Fite Lecture delivered at the 5th Annual International Humanitarian Law Dialogs in Chautauqua, New York, this essay examines the role that politics has played in the evolution of international criminal justice. It first establishes the frame of the lecture series and its relation to IntLawGrrls blog, a cosponsor of the IHL Dialogs. It then discusses the career of the series' namesake, Katherine B. Fite, a State Department lawyer who helped draft the Charter of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and who was, in her own words, a "political observer" of the proceedings. The essay …

Military Intervention And Diplomatic Engagement In Libya: A Collage Of Policy, Force And Law, Paul Williams, Anna Triponel

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The case of Libya demonstrates the extent to which the law plays a role in enabling, shaping and constraining complex military and diplomatic operations. The law underpinned a number of decisions made at the policy level regarding military and diplomatic engagement. Although prior military operations can provide guidance for decision-making in future military operations, the application of the law to each case will be unique. The Libyan case study provides an example of how the law and politics intertwined to achieve the U.S. government’s objectives of protecting the Libyan people against violent attacks by their leader.

This chapter examines the …

Policing International Prosecutors, Jenia I. Turner

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

A recurring question in international criminal procedure is how to ensure that prosecutors are held accountable for their errors and misconduct. When International Criminal Court (ICC) judges encountered the first serious error by the prosecution in Prosecutor v. Lubanga, they opted for an absolutist approach to remedies: the judges stayed the proceedings and ordered the release of the defendant. Although termination of the case was avoided through the intervention of the Appeals Chamber, the standoff between the judges and the prosecution highlighted the dilemmas that the ICC faces in these circumstances. To protect the integrity of its proceedings, the court …

Updates From The International And Internationalized Criminal Courts, Claire Grandison, Sofia Vivero, Andra Nicolescu, Danielle Dean, Benjamin Watson

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

What Is Aggression?: Comparing The Jus Ad Bellum And The Icc Statute, Mary Ellen O'Connell, Mirakmal Niyazmatov

Journal Articles

Under the international law on resort to force, the jus ad bellum, any serious violation of the United Nations Charter prohibition on the use of force amounts to aggression. Despite a close connection for over a century between the prohibition on aggression by states and the crime of aggression for which individuals may be held accountable, delegates to the 2010 International Criminal Court Review Conference in Kampala, Uganda felt compelled to bifurcate the two prohibitions and reach a compromise. Today, the ICC Statute contains a detailed provision on the crime of aggression, but with a byzantine procedure for entry into …

Reflections From The International Criminal Court Prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Military Intervention And Diplomatic Engagement In Libya: A Collage Of Policy, Force And Law, Paul R. Williams, Anna F. Triponel

Paul Williams

The case of Libya demonstrates the extent to which the law plays a role in enabling, shaping and constraining complex military and diplomatic operations. The law underpinned a number of decisions made at the policy level regarding military and diplomatic engagement. Although prior military operations can provide guidance for decision-making in future military operations, the application of the law to each case will be unique. The Libyan case study provides an example of how the law and politics intertwined to achieve the U.S. government’s objectives of protecting the Libyan people against violent attacks by their leader. This chapter examines the …