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Full-Text Articles in Law
Prosecuting Those Bearing 'Greatest Responsibility': The Lessons Of The Special Court For Sierra Leone, Charles Chernor Jalloh
Prosecuting Those Bearing 'Greatest Responsibility': The Lessons Of The Special Court For Sierra Leone, Charles Chernor Jalloh
Charles C. Jalloh
This Article examines the controversial article 1(1) of the Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) giving that tribunal the competence “to prosecute those who bear the greatest responsibility” for serious international and domestic crimes committed during the latter part of the notoriously brutal Sierra Leonean conflict. The debate that arose during the SCSL trials was whether this bare statement constituted a jurisdictional requirement that the prosecution must prove beyond a reasonable doubt or merely a type of guideline for the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. The judges of the court split on the issue. This paper is the …
Ending Impunity The Case For War Crimes Trials In Liberia, Charles Chernor Jalloh, Alhagi Marong
Ending Impunity The Case For War Crimes Trials In Liberia, Charles Chernor Jalloh, Alhagi Marong
Charles C. Jalloh
This paper argues that Liberia owes a duty under international law to investigate and prosecute the heinous crimes, including torture, rape and extra-judicial killings of innocent civilians, committed in that country by the various warring parties in the course of 14 years of brutal conflict. The authors evaluate the options for prosecution, starting with the possible use of Liberian courts. They argue that even if willing, the national courts are unable to render credible justice that protects the due process rights of the accused given the collapse of legal institutions and the paucity of financial, human and material resources in …
The International Criminal Court In Africa: Impartiality, Politics, Complementarity And Brexit, Bartram Brown
The International Criminal Court In Africa: Impartiality, Politics, Complementarity And Brexit, Bartram Brown
Bartram Brown
International Criminal Law Documents Supplement, Jimmy Gurule, Jordan Paust, Bruce Zagaris, Leila Sadat, Michael Scharf, M. Bassiouni
International Criminal Law Documents Supplement, Jimmy Gurule, Jordan Paust, Bruce Zagaris, Leila Sadat, Michael Scharf, M. Bassiouni
Jimmy Gurule
This Documents Supplement accompanies the casebook International Criminal Law, Fourth Edition(2013). It is the most thorough compilation of documents available for classroom use with respect to international criminal law and related aspects of more general international law and human rights law. It is the first documents supplement to contain the Arab Charter on Human Rights and the Amendment to the Rome Statute of the ICC with respect to the Crime of Aggression.
Searching For The Hinterman: In Praise Of Subjective Theories Of Imputation, Jens David Ohlin
Searching For The Hinterman: In Praise Of Subjective Theories Of Imputation, Jens David Ohlin
Jens David Ohlin
How should international courts distinguish between principals and accessories? The ICC answered this question with Roxin’s Control Theory of Perpetration; defendants should be convicted as principals if they control the crime individually, jointly with a co-perpetrator, indirectly via an organized apparatus of power, or as indirect co-perpetrators (via a combination of the previous doctrines). As the ICC adopted the control requirement, however, some of its decisions have allowed lower mental states such as recklessness or dolus eventualis to meet the standard for principal perpetration under the Control Theory. Other decisions have asserted that intent or knowledge is required though their …
Is Jus In Bello In Crisis?, Jens Ohlin
Is Jus In Bello In Crisis?, Jens Ohlin
Jens David Ohlin
It is a truism that new technologies are remaking the tactical and legal landscape of armed conflict. While such statements are undoubtedly true, it is important to separate genuine trends from scholarly exaggeration. The following essay, an introduction to the Drone Wars symposium of the Journal, catalogues today’s most pressing disputes regarding international humanitarian law (IHL) and their consequences for criminal responsibility. These include: (i) the triggering and classification of armed conflicts with non-state actors; (ii) the relative scope of IHL and international human rights law in asymmetrical conflicts; (iii) the targeting of suspected terrorists under concept- or status-based classifications …
Joint Criminal Confusion, Jens David Ohlin
Joint Criminal Confusion, Jens David Ohlin
Jens David Ohlin
Article 25 on individual criminal responsibility has generated more conflicting interpretations than any other provision in the Rome Statute. Part of the problem is that it is impossible to construct a coherent and nonredundant interpretation of Article 25(3)(d) on group complicity. Because of unfortunate drafting, both the required contribution and the required mental element are impossible to discern from the inscrutable language. As a result, it is nearly impossible to devise a holistic interpretation of Article 25(3)(d) that fits together with the rest of Article 25 and Article 30 on mental elements. One possible solution is to repair Article 25 …
Assessing The Control-Theory, Jens David Ohlin, Elies Van Sliedregt, Thomas Weigend
Assessing The Control-Theory, Jens David Ohlin, Elies Van Sliedregt, Thomas Weigend
Jens David Ohlin
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 …
Reclaiming Fundamental Principles Of Criminal Law In The Darfur Case, George P. Fletcher, Jens David Ohlin
Reclaiming Fundamental Principles Of Criminal Law In The Darfur Case, George P. Fletcher, Jens David Ohlin
Jens David Ohlin
According to the authors, the Report of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Darfur and the Security Council referral of the situation in Darfur to the International Criminal Court (ICC) bring to light two serious deficiencies of the ICC Statute and, more generally, international criminal law: (i) the systematic ambiguity between collective responsibility (i.e. the responsibility of the whole state) and criminal liability of individuals, on which current international criminal law is grounded, and (ii) the failure of the ICC Statute fully to comply with the principle of legality. The first deficiency is illustrated by highlighting the notions of genocide …
Three Conceptual Problems With The Doctrine Of Joint Criminal Enterprise, Jens David Ohlin
Three Conceptual Problems With The Doctrine Of Joint Criminal Enterprise, Jens David Ohlin
Jens David Ohlin
This article dissects the Tadic court’s argument for finding the doctrine of joint criminal enterprise in the ICTY Statute. The key arguments are identified and each are found to be either problematic or insufficient to deduce the doctrine from the statute: the object and purpose of the statute to punish major war criminals, the inherently collective nature of war crimes and genocide and the conviction of war criminals for joint enterprises in World War II cases. The author criticizes this overreliance on international case law and the insufficient attention to the language of criminal statutes when interpreting conspiracy doctrines. The …
The Curious Criminality Of Mass Atrocity: Diverse Actors, Multiple Truths, And Plural Responses, Mark Drumbl
The Curious Criminality Of Mass Atrocity: Diverse Actors, Multiple Truths, And Plural Responses, Mark Drumbl
Mark A. Drumbl
No abstract provided.
Litigating For Justice: Defense Work At The International Criminal Tribunal For Rwanda (Ictr), Beth S. Lyons
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.
Rights, Culture, And Crime: The Role Of Rule Of Law For The Women Of Afghanistan, Mark A. Drumbl
Rights, Culture, And Crime: The Role Of Rule Of Law For The Women Of Afghanistan, Mark A. Drumbl
Mark A. Drumbl
This Article explores the role of rule of law in redressing crimes and human rights abuses committed against the women of Afghanistan. Mainstream discourse approaches the situation binarily, obliging women to choose between international and often distant human rights, on the one hand, or proximate cultural/religious norms, on the other, in order to adjudicate gender crimes. This can lead either to externalized justice or, in the case of the implementation of Afghan local law, to renewed victimization of women in the name of redressing abuses suffered by other women. Local law in Afghanistan is reflected in codes such as the …
The Forgotten Nuremberg Hate Speech Case: Otto Dietrich And The Future Of Persecution Law, Gregory S. Gordon
The Forgotten Nuremberg Hate Speech Case: Otto Dietrich And The Future Of Persecution Law, Gregory S. Gordon
Gregory S. Gordon
Among international jurists, the conventional wisdom is that atrocity speech law sprang fully formed from two judgments issued by the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg (IMT): the crimes against humanity conviction of Nazi newspaper editor Julius Streicher, and the acquittal on the same charge of Third Reich Radio Division Chief Hans Fritzsche. But the exclusive focus on the IMT judgments as the founding texts of atrocity speech law is misplaced. Not long after Streicher and Fritzsche, and in the same courtroom, the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunal (NMT) in the Ministries Case, issued an equally significant crimes against …
"First, Do No Harm:" Interpreting The Crime Of Aggression To Exclude Humanitarian Intervention, Joshua L. Root
"First, Do No Harm:" Interpreting The Crime Of Aggression To Exclude Humanitarian Intervention, Joshua L. Root
Joshua L. Root
The yet to be implemented Article 8 bis of the Rome Statute criminalizes, as the crime of aggression, acts of aggression which by their “character, gravity and scale” constitute a “manifest violation” of the Charter of the United Nations. This article argues that Article 8 bis must be construed so as to exclude from the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction uses of force which are facial violations of the UN Charter but which nonetheless comport with the principles and purposes of the Charter, such as bona fide humanitarian intervention unauthorized by the Security Council. This article applies the Vienna Convention on …
The Mental Element Of The Crime Of Genocide, Devrim Aydin
The Mental Element Of The Crime Of Genocide, Devrim Aydin
devrim aydin
No abstract provided.
Looking Up, Down And Across: The Icty's Place In The International Legal Order, Mark A. Drumbl
Looking Up, Down And Across: The Icty's Place In The International Legal Order, Mark A. Drumbl
Mark A. Drumbl
Not available.
Victimhood In Our Neighborhood: Terrorist Crime, Taliban Guilt, And The Asymmetries Of The International Legal Order, Mark A. Drumbl
Victimhood In Our Neighborhood: Terrorist Crime, Taliban Guilt, And The Asymmetries Of The International Legal Order, Mark A. Drumbl
Mark A. Drumbl
This Article posits that the September 11 attacks constitute nonisolated warlike attacks undertaken against a sovereign state by individuals from other states operating through a non-state actor with some command and political structure. This means that the attacks contain elements common to both armed attacks and criminal attacks. The international community largely has characterized the attacks as armed attacks. This characterization evokes a legal basis for the use of force initiated by the United States and United Kingdom against Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. Notwithstanding the successes of the military campaign and the need for containment of terrorist activity, this …
What May Be The Possible Reservations Of Turkey To Access The Icc Rome Statute, Devrim Aydin
What May Be The Possible Reservations Of Turkey To Access The Icc Rome Statute, Devrim Aydin
devrim aydin
No abstract provided.
The Future Of International Criminal Law And Transitional Justice,, Mark Drumbl
The Future Of International Criminal Law And Transitional Justice,, Mark Drumbl
Mark A. Drumbl
No abstract provided.