Law Commons^™

To The Court Of Last Resort: A Prosecutorial Roadmap In The Aftermath Of State Violence In Chile And Colombia, David F. Scollan

University of Miami Inter-American Law Review

A great deal of academic research and writing has been done on the most glaring examples of war crimes and crimes against humanity. But, only a small cadre of authors have endeavored to identify the ‘lower limit’ of when state action qualifies as these heinous acts. This Note strives to add to that area of legal scholarship aimed at bringing instances of in-country state perpetrated violence out from the behind the veil of sovereign police action and into the spotlight to call them what they are: crimes worthy of international condemnation and punishment. Specifically, this Note unpacks two spasms of …

Justice Without Fear Or Favour? The Uncertain Future Of The International Criminal Court, Leila Nadya Sadat

Scholarship@WashULaw

This essay traces the history of the International Criminal Court from its establishment in 1998 until the current day. It briefly surveys the history of the Court’s founding and evokes many of its current challenges and innovative aspects of its jurisprudence, particularly regarding jurisdiction, immunities, and admissibility, including decisions relating to the Situations in Afghanistan, Bangladesh/Myanmar, Libya, Palestine, and Sudan. As the essay notes, although many challenges have emerged from internal difficulties the Court has faced or design elements of the Statute, external challenges arising from the geopolitical environment within which it operates exist as well. Despite these problems, which …

Heads Of State And Other Government Officials Before The International Criminal Court: The Uneasy Revolution Continues, Leila Nadya Sadat

Scholarship@WashULaw

This essay takes up the current debate about the relationship between article 27 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and article 98 of the Statute concerning the immunity of sitting Heads of State from investigation or prosecution before the Court and the duty of States to cooperate with the Court as regards their arrest and surrender. The essay traces the history of article 27 and its incorporation into the Statute and observes that it represents a rule of customary international law resting upon the adoption of the Nuremberg Principles after World War II, and reiterated in the …

Procuring Guilty Pleas For International Crimes: The Limited Influence Of Sentencing Discounts, Nancy Amoury Combs

Nancy Combs

International tribunals prosecuting those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes face many of the same resource constraints that bedevil national criminal justice systems. Consequently, international tribunals have begun to utilize various procedural devices long used by national prosecutors to speed case dispositions. One such procedural device is the guilty plea. National prosecutors induce criminal defendants to plead guilty and waive their rights to trial through a process of plea bargaining; that is, by offering defendants sentencing concessions in exchange for their guilty pleas. International prosecutors who seek to engage in plea bargaining, however, face a host of …

Understanding Crime Gravity: Exploring The Views Of International Criminal Law Experts, Stuart Ford

Stuart Ford

No abstract provided.

The Church Abuse Scandal: Were Crimes Against Humanity Committed?, Dermot Groome

Dermot M Groome

Increasingly shocking revelations about sexual abuse by members of Catholic religious congregations and diocesan priests have recently raised the question of whether such widespread abuses constitute crimes against humanity. This paper considers that question in the context of a report issued by the Ryan Commission, an independent quasi-judicial commission that spent 10 years conducting detailed investigations into childcare institutions operated by Catholic religious congregations in Ireland. The Ryan Commission’s findings with respect to both widespread physical and sexual abuse provide a factual basis upon which to consider whether crimes against humanity were in fact committed. Contrasting the intentionality of behind …

Understanding Crime Gravity: Exploring The Views Of International Criminal Law Experts, Stuart Ford

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

The Bemba Appeals Chamber Judgment: Impunity For Sexual And Gender-Based Crimes?, Susana Sácouto, Patricia Viseur Sellers

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

Human Rights In International Criminal Proceedings—The Impact Of The Judgment Of The Kosovo Specialist Chambers Of 26 April 2017, Göran Sluiter

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

By their very nature, international criminal tribunals will in their operation impact individual rights, such as the right to liberty and the right to a fair trial. Without a constitution and without a history in developing due process norms, international criminal tribunals have to provide for instant incorporation of human rights in their respective criminal proceedings.

However, the circumstances under which international criminal tribunals are established are often complex, while at the same time their creation is considered to be a matter of urgency. As a result, there may not always be sufficient attention to human rights law’s position and …

Rape And Sexual Violence: Questionable Inevitability And Moral Responsibility In Armed Conflict, Katherine W. Bogen

Scholarly Undergraduate Research Journal at Clark (SURJ)

Wartime sexual violence is a critical human rights issue that usurps the autonomy of its victims as well as their physical and psychological safety. It occurs in both ethnic and non-ethnic wars, across geographic regions, against both men and women, and regardless of the “official” position of commanders, states, and armed groups on the use of rape as tactic of war. This problem is current, pervasive, and global in spite of the status of wartime sexual violence perpetration as a crime against humanity and the capacity of the international criminal court to indict offenders. Though some scholars have argued that …

The Hidden Costs Of Strategic Communications For The International Criminal Court, Megan A. Fairlie

Faculty Publications

In little more than a decade, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has received nearly 11,000 requests for its Prosecutor to conduct atrocity investigations around the globe. To date, no such communication has resulted in an official investigation. Nevertheless, the act of publicizing these investigation requests has proven to be an effective, attention-getting tool that can achieve valuable, alternative goals. This fact explains the increasing popularity of “strategic communications” — highly publicized investigation requests aimed not at securing any ICC-related activity, but at obtaining some non-Court related advantage. This Article, which is the first to identify this trend, explains why the …

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

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 …

The Church Abuse Scandal: Were Crimes Against Humanity Committed?, Dermot Groome

Journal Articles

Increasingly shocking revelations about sexual abuse by members of Catholic religious congregations and diocesan priests have recently raised the question of whether such widespread abuses constitute crimes against humanity. This paper considers that question in the context of a report issued by the Ryan Commission, an independent quasi-judicial commission that spent 10 years conducting detailed investigations into childcare institutions operated by Catholic religious congregations in Ireland. The Ryan Commission’s findings with respect to both widespread physical and sexual abuse provide a factual basis upon which to consider whether crimes against humanity were in fact committed. Contrasting the intentionality of behind …

R. V. Munyaneza: Pondering Canada's First Core Crimes Conviction, Robert Currie, Ion Stancu

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Canada recently completed its first genocide trial, which resulted in the conviction of the Rwandan accused, Desiré Munyaneza, for crimes committed during the Rwandan genocide. While the case is still under appeal, it represents a significant success for Canada’s relatively new core crimes legislation, the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, and was the first prosecution undertaken pursuant to that law. Drawing upon the Munyaneza case, the authors analyze the legislation and evaluate its effectiveness. They conclude that the model is an effective one that both bodes well for Canada’s future participation in the battle against impunity, and provides …

R. V. Munyaneza: Pondering Canada's First Core Crimes Conviction, Robert Currie

Articles, Book Chapters, & Popular Press

Canada recently completed its first genocide trial, which resulted in the conviction of the Rwandan accused, Desiré Munyaneza, for crimes committed during the Rwandan genocide. While the case is still under appeal, it represents a significant success for Canada’s relatively new core crimes legislation, the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, and was the first prosecution undertaken pursuant to that law. Drawing upon the Munyaneza case, the authors analyze the legislation and evaluate its effectiveness. They conclude that the model is an effective one that both bodes well for Canada’s future participation in the battle against impunity, and provides …

Much Ado About Non-State Actors: The Vanishing Relevance Of State Affiliation In International Criminal Law, John Cerone

San Diego International Law Journal

Much has been made recently of the deficiencies of international law in grappling with violence perpetrated by non-state actors. From transnational terrorist networks to private security contractors (PSCs), organizations that are not officially part of the apparatus of any state are increasingly engaged in protracted episodes of intense violence, giving rise to questions of accountability under international law. Does international law provide rules applicable to such conduct? While the repression of crime, especially that perpetrated by non-state actors, has traditionally been left to the internal law of states, most international jurists will point to the ancient rules of international law …

Symposium 2008: The United Nations Genocide Convention: A 60th Anniversary Commemoration: Keynote Address, Juan E. Mendez

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Humanitarian Intervention: The New Missing Link In The Fight To Prevent Crimes Against Humanity And Genocide, Paul Williams

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

Procuring Guilty Pleas For International Crimes: The Limited Influence Of Sentencing Discounts, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

International tribunals prosecuting those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes face many of the same resource constraints that bedevil national criminal justice systems. Consequently, international tribunals have begun to utilize various procedural devices long used by national prosecutors to speed case dispositions. One such procedural device is the guilty plea. National prosecutors induce criminal defendants to plead guilty and waive their rights to trial through a process of plea bargaining; that is, by offering defendants sentencing concessions in exchange for their guilty pleas. International prosecutors who seek to engage in plea bargaining, however, face a host of …

Inter-American System, Claudia Martin

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.

A Permanent International Criminal Court: Soon To Be A Reality , Richard J. Wilson

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.

Addressing Gross Human Rights Abuses: Punishment And Victim Compensation, Diane Orentlicher

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

No abstract provided.