Criminal Law Commons^™

Book Review, Jamie Rowen, Searching For Truth In The Transitional Justice Movement (2017) & Leonie Steinl, Child Soldiers As Agents Of War And Peace: A Restorative Transitional Justice Approach To Accountability For Crimes Under International Law (2017), Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

Why do truth commissions emerge following some conflicts but not others? Jamie Rowen tackles this question in Searching for Truth in the Transitional Justice Movement. Rowen approaches this topic through a detailed study of three jurisdictions: the former Yugoslavia, Colombia, and the United States. Although truth commissions did progress in Colombia, they stalled in both the former Yugoslavia in the wake of the Balkan Wars as well as in the United States in regard to the conduct of US officials after the events on 11 September 2001. Rowen unpacks what happened and what failed to happen — and why …

The Persuasive Authority Of Internationalized Criminal Tribunals, Elena Baylis

Articles

After a period in which it seemed as though hybrid criminal tribunals were waning, proposals for such tribunals are proliferating again. The recent success of the Extraordinary African Chambers in trying Hisséne Habré highlights the resurgent trend toward ad hoc internationalized courts and chambers to try cases of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The international community could make strategic choices in designing this new generation of tribunals to maximize their effectiveness. One way that international courts spread their influence is through their persuasive authority. Even if their decisions are not binding on the concerned national courts, by persuading …

What Internationals Know: Improving The Effectiveness Of Post-Conflict Justice Initiatives, Elena Baylis

Articles

The field of post-conflict or transitional justice has developed rapidly over the last thirty years. The United States, the United Nations, and many other international organizations, governments, and institutions have contributed to hundreds of international criminal trials and rule of law programs. International staff, known as “internationals,” travel among post-conflict states and international criminal tribunals to carry out these initiatives. In addition to being a field of work, post-conflict justice also constitutes an emergent body of legal knowledge, composed of substantive standards, rules of procedure, best practices, and other elements. Just as the programs and institutions of post-conflict justice have …

Function And Dysfunction In Post-Conflict Justice Networks And Communities, Elena Baylis

Articles

The field of post-conflict justice includes many well-known international criminal law and rule of law initiatives, from the International Criminal Court to legal reform programs in Afghanistan and Iraq. Less visible, but nonetheless vital to the field, are the international staff (known as internationals) who carry out these transitional justice enterprises, and the networks and communities of practice that connect them to each other. By sharing information, collaborating on joint action, and debating proposed legal rules within their networks and communities, internationals help to develop and implement the core norms and practices of post-conflict justice. These modes of collaboration are …

Session Five: Expert Panel On Fighting Impunity Remarks Of Professor Diane F. Orentlicher, Diane Orentlicher

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

As the field of transitional justice has matured, we have a better appreciation of the fact that both the capacity and will of societies to address violations of the past may evolve signifiicantly, and in unforeseen ways, over time—sometimes over a long, long period. (One speaker this morning described how he was unable to come to terms with his own torture for 11 years— and then, pursuing justice became critical.) Thus, for example, prosecutions for past violations may not occur in the immediate aftermath of a transition from repression to democratic gover¬ nance; often they take place after the passage …

Reassessing The Role Of International Criminal Law: Rebuilding National Courts Through Transnational Networks, Elena Baylis

Articles

The international community has long debated its role in redressing grave atrocities like war crimes and crimes against humanity. This Article suggests that this debate has focused too much on trials in international and hybrid courts as the primary conduit for international contributions to justice in post-conflict states. It proposes that the international community should look instead to national courts as the primary venue for such trials and to transnational networks as an effective mechanism for international involvement. Key characteristics of this model include: (1) reliance on transnational networks to convey international criminal law and international resources into national settings; …

The Pace Of International Criminal Justice, Jean Galbraith

All Faculty Scholarship

This article examines how long international criminal cases take in practice. It considers the cases of all 305 individuals charged at six international and hybrid criminal tribunals (as of shortly before this article's publication). Contrary to the conventional wisdom, on average today’s international criminal cases do not take much longer than comparably complex domestic criminal cases, once the defendants are in custody. Nonetheless, international criminal cases may take too long to achieve the goal of helping to reconcile the affected communities – particularly where a community has abruptly transitioned from an abusive old regime to an entirely new one. Where …

Tribunal-Hopping With The Post-Conflict Justice Junkies, Elena Baylis

Articles

The field of post-conflict justice is characterized in no small part by international interventions into post-conflict settings. International interveners invest substantial resources toward the goals of post-conflict justice, including creating legal accountability for atrocities and rebuilding local and national justice systems that respect human rights and rule of law. The aims of post-conflict justice and the mechanisms by which the international community can contribute to post-conflict legal institutions and processes have been and continue to be studied intensively.

But while the institutions, processes, and goals of post-conflict justice have been carefully scrutinized, another aspect of international interventions into post-conflict justice …

Defense Perspectives On Law And Politics In International Criminal Trials, Jenia I. Turner

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

As international criminal trials become more prominent, a fundamental question persists about their purposes: Are the goals of international criminal trials primarily legal, similar to the objectives of domestic trials, or are they primarily political, such as helping communities heal and compiling an accurate record of the past? Courts and commentators often acknowledge both legal and political purposes of international criminal trials, but fail to prioritize among them. This paper examines the purposes of international criminal trials through the perspectives of an overlooked, but important, participant in these trials¿the defense attorney. Through personal interviews, scholarly articles, and case law, I …

On The Very Idea Of Transitional Justice, Jens David Ohlin

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The phrase "transitional justice" has had an amazingly successful career at an early age. Popularized as an academic concept in the early 1990s in the aftermath of apartheid's collapse in South Africa, the phrase quickly gained traction in a variety of global contexts, including Rwanda, Yugoslavia, Cambodia, and Sierra Leone. A sizeable literature has been generated around it, so much so that one might even call it a sub-discipline with inter-disciplinary qualities. Nonetheless, the concept remains an enigma. It defines the contours of an entire field of intellectual inquiry, yet at the same time it hides more than it illuminates. …

Parallel Courts In Post-Conflict Kosovo, Elena Baylis

Articles

Even as American attention is focused on Iraq's struggle to rebuild its political and legal systems in the face of violent sectarian divisions, another fractured society - Kosovo - has begun negotiations to resolve the question of its political independence. Kosovo's efforts to establish multi-ethnic rule of law in the context of persistent ethnic divisions offer lessons in transitional justice and in managing legal pluralism for Iraq and other states.

In Kosovo today, two parallel judicial systems each claim sole jurisdiction over the province. One system was established by the United Nations administration in Kosovo, while the other system is …