Law Commons^™

Responsibility To Protect, Libya To Japan, Linda A. Malone

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.

Maturing Justice: Integrating The Convention On The Rights Of The Child Into The Judgments And Processes Of The International Criminal Court, Linda A. Malone

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.

Book Review Of Fact Finding Without Facts: The Uncertain Evidentiary Foundations Of International Criminal Convictions, Linda A. Malone

Linda A. Malone

No abstract provided.

Establishing The International Criminal Court, Nancy Amoury Combs

Nancy Combs

No abstract provided.

Karen E. Woody, Putting Pandora On Trial, 98 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 699 (2008) (Reviewing Mark A. Drumbl, Atrocity, Punishment, And International Law (2007)), Karen E. Woody

Karen Woody

In the wake of increasing globalization over the past fifty years, international criminal law has transformed from a toothless shadow into a concrete reality; the International Criminal Court is the most recent and impressive institutional accomplishment. Unfortunately, international criminal law has enjoyed this progress on the heels of increasingly horrific international crimes. International adjudicatory institutions have taken many forms and the sentences they deliver have varied widely. In Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law, Mark Drumbl reviews the strides made in international criminal law from the Nuremberg trials through present-day trials, particularly those related to the crimes committed in Rwanda and …

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

Stuart Ford

No abstract provided.

Regionalizing International Criminal Law?, Charles Chernor Jalloh

Charles C. Jalloh

This article examines the initially cooperative but increasingly tense relationship between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and Africa. It assesses the various legal and political reasons for the mounting criticisms of the ICC by African governments, especially within the African Union (AU), following the indictment of incumbent Sudanese President Omar Hassan Al Bashir. The author situates the ICC within broader African efforts to establish more peaceful societies through the continent-wide AU. He submits that the ICC, by prosecuting architects of serious international crimes in Africa’s numerous conflicts, could contribute significantly to the continent’s fledgling peace and security architecture which aims …

Special Court For Sierra Leone: Achieving Justice?, Charles Chernor Jalloh

Charles C. Jalloh

The Sierra Leone war, which lasted between 1991 and 2002, gained notoriety around the world for “blood" or "conflict" diamonds and some of the worst atrocities ever perpetrated against civilians in a modern conflict. On January 16, 2002, the United Nations and the Government of Sierra Leone signed an historic agreement to establish the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL). In setting up a new type of ad hoc criminal tribunal, the parties sought to achieve two key objectives. First, to dispense credible justice by enabling the prosecution of those bearing greatest responsibility for the wartime atrocities based on international …

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

Charles C. Jalloh

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 …

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

Charles C. Jalloh

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 Decision, International Criminal Court, Decision On The Authorization Of An Investigation Into The Situation In The Republic Of Kenya, Charles Chernor Jalloh

Charles C. Jalloh

On March 31, 2010, in its first ever decision authorizing a prosecutorial proprio motu investigation, the Pre-Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) granted the ICC Prosecutor permission to investigate the shocking violence which followed Kenya’s December 2007 Presidential elections under Article 15 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The majority of the Chamber ruled that both the contextual and underlying requirements of crimes against humanity had been fulfilled, including that they were committed as part of a state or organizational policy as required by Article7(2)(a) of the Rome Statute. According to the majority, the latter …

Assessing The African Union Concerns About Article 16 Of The Rome State Of The International Criminal Court, Charles Chernor Jalloh, Dapo Akande, Max Du Plessis

Charles C. Jalloh

This article assesses the African Union’s (AU) concerns about Article 16 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). It seeks to articulate a clearer picture of the law and politics of deferrals within the context of the AU’s repeated calls to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC, or the Council) to invoke Article 16 to suspend the processes initiated by the ICC against President Omar Al Bashir of Sudan. The UNSC’s failure to accede to the AU request led African States to formally withhold cooperation from the ICC in respect to the arrest and surrender of the …

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

Charles C. Jalloh

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 …

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

Charles C. Jalloh

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, …

The International Criminal Court In Africa: Impartiality, Politics, Complementarity And Brexit, Bartram Brown

Bartram Brown

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 …

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

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 …

Meta-Theory Of International Criminal Procedure: Vindicating The Rule Of Law, Jens David Ohlin

Jens David Ohlin

International criminal procedure is in a second phase of development, moving beyond the common law/civil law dichotomy and searching for its sui generis theory. The standard line is that international criminal procedure has an instrumental value: it services the general goals of international criminal justice and allows punishment for violations of substantive international criminal law. However, international criminal procedure also has an important and often overlooked intrinsic value not reducible to its instrumental value: it vindicates the Rule of Law. This vindication is performed by adjudicating allegations of criminal violations that occurred during periods of anarchy characterized by the absence …

Foreword, The Future Of International Criminal Justice, Claudio M. Grossman

Claudio M. Grossman

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.

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 …

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

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

Dr. Saumya Uma

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 …

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 …