Law Commons^™

Classification Of Cyber Conflict, Michael N. Schmitt

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Cyber Warfare: Implications For Non-International Armed Conflicts, Robin Geiss

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

The Syrian Intervention: Assessing The Possible International Law Justifications, Michael Schmitt

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.

Shame, Memory, And The Unspeakable: The International Criminal Court As Damnatio Memoriae, Michael Blake

San Diego Law Review

The first [part] will discuss two ways of looking at the court and why the conventional justifications of punishment might not be adequate to justify what the court is doing. The second will examine the issue of the politically unspeakable and argue that the court’s mandate might indeed be the responsibility of making certain ideas and persons politically shameful. The final Part will try to give some justification for the claim that this mandate might give rise to a justification for the court’s existence. On the account I provide here, even if the court could not be justified with reference …

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

Mary Ellen O'Connell

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 …

Empowering United States Courts To Hear Crimes Within The Jurisdiction Of The International Criminal Court, Douglass Cassel

Douglass Cassel

No abstract provided.

Unlocking The Mysteriousness Of Complementarity: In Search Of A Forum Conveniens For Trial Of The Leaders Of The Lord's Resistance Army, Alhagi Marong

Georgia Journal of International & Comparative Law

No abstract provided.

Assessing The Control-Theory, Jens David Ohlin, Elies Van Sliedregt, Thomas Weigend

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

As the first cases before the ICC proceed to the Appeals Chamber, the judges ought to critically evaluate the merits and demerits of the control-theory of perpetratorship and its related doctrines. The request for a possible re-characterization of the form of responsibility in the case of Katanga and the recent acquittal of Ngudjolo can be taken as indications that the control-theory, is problematic as a theory of liability. The authors, in a spirit of constructive criticism, invite the ICC Appeals Chamber to take this unique opportunity to reconsider or improve the control-theory as developed by the Pre-Trial Chambers in the …

Trying Nationals Of Non-Consenting, Non-Party States Before The International Criminal Court: An Unlawful Overreach, Jay Alan Sekulow, Robert Weston Ash

Robert W. Ash

The Rome Statute is an international treaty which seeks, inter alia, to provide to the international community the tools necessary to bring to justice those responsible for the most horrific international crimes. The means chosen to achieve that goal was to create a standing international court to investigate and try persons alleged to have committed such crimes. To accomplish that goal, the Rome Statute created the International Criminal Court (ICC). As a creation of a treaty, the ICC falls within the area of conventional (i.e., convention-based) international law. Under customary international law, no States which decline to be bound by …

The International Criminal Court's Unjustified Jurisdiction Claims: Libya As A Case Study, Jennifer Nimry Eseed

Chicago-Kent Law Review

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is a treaty-based court that functions to end impunity for perpetrators of the gravest crimes that concern the international community. As of July 1, 2012, 121 have countries ratified the Rome Statute, the treaty governing the ICC, expressing their acceptance of the Court’s jurisdiction. The ICC is fully independent from the United Nations, yet the Rome Statute problematically allows for the United Nation’s Security Council to refer an issue to the ICC, whether or not the issue relates to a country that has ratified the treaty. This Note uses the 2011 conflict in Libya to …

The Push To Criminalize Aggression: Something Lost Amid The Gains?, Mark A. Drumbl

Mark A. Drumbl

The International Criminal Court has jurisdiction over the crime of aggression, but the Rome Statute fails to define the crime. A Special Work- ing Group on the Crime of Aggression, however, has made considerable progress in developing a definition. The consensus that has emerged favors a narrow definition. Three characteristics animate this consensus: (1) that state action is central to the crime; (2) that acts of aggression involve inter- state armed conflict; and (3) that criminal responsibility attaches only to very top political or military leaders. This Article normatively challenges this consensus. I argue that expanding the scope of the …

January Roundtable: Responding To The Syrian Crisis, Introduction, Claudia Fuentes Julio

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“The World Next Genocide” by Simon Adams. New York Times, November 2012.

and

“Syria is Central to Holding Together the Mideast” by Condoleezza Rice. Washington Post, November 2012.

Syrians Crushed Between Humanitarianism And Realism, Philip Cunliffe

Human Rights & Human Welfare

With the UN High Commissioner for Refugees announcing early this year that the war in Syria may have claimed as many as 60,000 lives, two op-eds published late in 2012 usefully exemplify two contrasting frames that have thus far dominated international responses to the conflict—namely, the humanitarian frame and the geopolitical frame. Yet despite the apparent contrasts between these two frameworks, both reflect a similar contempt for the Syrian people and their right to self-determination. The humanitarian framing of the conflict emphasizes the scale of human suffering and the need to alleviate it, while the geopolitical frame accentuates political interests …

Defying Gravity: The Development Of Standards In The International Prosecution Of International Atrocity Crimes, Matthew H. Charity

Faculty Scholarship

The International Criminal Court (the “ICC”), now one decade old, is still in the process of setting norms as to scope, jurisdiction, and other issues. One issue that has thus far defied resolution is a key issue of jurisdiction: the place of complementarity in deciding whether certain criminal issues impacting international standards or interests should be decided before the ICC or national tribunals. Although the Rome Statute crystallizes definitions of core international crimes that may be tried before the ICC, the process of determining whether to leave jurisdiction with the nation or allowing jurisdiction to the ICC continues to lack …

Trying Terrorism: Joint Criminal Enterprise, Material Support, And The Paradox Of International Criminal Law, Alexandra Link

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note will examine theoretical problems in ICL and public international law by evaluating the practical implications of applying ICL sources to find criminal liability outside the narrow confines of the international tribunals. It will examine the problems posed by the conflicting standards of the Rome Statute and ICTY jurisprudence as a matter of customary international law, the failure of U.S. courts to effectively confront the contextual and doctrinal analysis necessary to determine the limitations of these sources, and the proper application of these sources to the issues raised in Hamdan II and Al Bahlul. Viewing ICL through the lens …

Bargaining Practices: Negotiating The Kampala Compromise For The International Criminal Court, Noah Weisbord

Faculty Publications

At the International Criminal Court's (ICC) Review Conference in 2010, the ICC's Assembly of States Parties (ASP) agreed upon a definition of the crime of aggression, jurisdictional conditions, and a mechanism for its entry into force (the "Kampala Compromise"). These amendments give the ICC jurisdiction to prosecute political and military leaders of states for planning, preparing, initiating, or executing illegal wars, beginning as early as January 2017.

This article explains the bargaining practices of the diplomats that gave rise to this historic development in international law. This article argues that the international-practices framework, as currently conceived, does not adequately capture …

Provisional Arrest And Incarceration In The International Criminal Tribunals, Charles Chernor Jalloh, Melinda Taylor

Faculty Publications

This article examines the widely ignored but important issue regarding the provisional arrest and detention of persons suspected of having committed international crimes by international or internationalized courts. The paper examines the pioneer case law and practice of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, as well as the emerging practice of the permanent International Criminal Court, to evaluate how these courts have generally addressed the rights of these individuals to due process and freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention before …

Punishing Aggression As A Crime Against Humanity: A Noble But Inadequate Measure To Safeguard International Peace And Security, Chet Tan

American University International Law Review

No abstract provided.

Syria: Not Libya, But Let’S Treat It Like It Is Anyway, Eric A. Heinze

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The articles by Condoleezza Rice and Simon Adams advance a series of disquieting possibilities for the future of Syria if the US and other states fail to act. While I am sympathetic to the urgency with which both writers advance their claims, there is much strained and stretched logic—as well as outright naiveté—in both authors' arguments, especially Rice's.

What Makes A Crime Against Humanity A Crime Against Humanity?, Charles Chernor Jalloh

Faculty Publications

This article examines what makes a crime against humanity a crime against humanity as opposed to an ordinary offense under domestic criminal law. One answer is to say that any systematic or widespread attack against a civilian population which is sponsored, supported or condoned by the State is a crime against humanity. Another interpretation is that any widespread or systematic attacks against civilians which “infringe on basic human values” should be classified as crimes against humanity. This paper will use the Rome Statute and emerging case law of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to argue that neither of the two …

International Law Weekend, American Branch Of The International Law Association Perspectives On Crimes Of Sexual Violence In International Law, Susana Sacouto

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Children And The First Verdict Of The International Criminal Court, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

Child soldiers were a central concern in the first decade of the International Criminal Court; indeed, the court’s first trial, Prosecutor v. Lubanga, dealt exclusively with the war crimes of conscripting, enlisting, and using child soldiers. This article compares the attention that the court has paid to children – an attention that serves the express terms of the ICC Statute – with the relative inattention in post-World War II international instruments such as the statutes of the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals. The article then analyzes the Lubanga conviction, sentence, and reparations rulings. It recommends that the ICC focus attention on …

A Janus Look At International Criminal Justice, Diane Marie Amann

Scholarly Works

Invoking the name of Janus, the Roman god who looked simultaneously at the past and the future, this article examines international criminal justice at a watershed moment, when a number of 20-year-old ad hoc tribunals were winding down even as the International Criminal Court was entering its teen years. First explored are challenges posed by politics – that is, the need to secure cooperation from states and from the U.N. Security Council – and economics – that is, the need to work within budgetary constraints. The article then surveys significant developments in each of a half-dozen international criminal courts and …

Authority To Proscribe And Punish International Crimes, Guyora Binder

Journal Articles

Although criminal jurisdiction is usually exercised by governments, offenses can also be proscribed by international law, and punishment can be imposed by international tribunals. This article critically examines the legitimacy of such exercises of international criminal jurisdiction. It reasons that criminal law can plausibly be justified as a cooperative institution that achieves the public good of a rule of law, with its attendant benefits of social peace and equal dignity of persons. It then argues that such a beneficial rule of law requires a punishing authority with the executive capacity to protect those it claims to regulate. It would follow …

What May Be The Possible Reservations Of Turkey To Access The Icc Rome Statute, Devrim Aydin

devrim aydin

No abstract provided.

Impunity Writ Large: A Study Of Crimes Committed During Anti-Veerappan Operations, Saumya Uma

Dr. Saumya Uma