Law Commons^™

The Intenational Crimial Court (Icc) As A Mechanism For Global Justice And Rule Of Law, Paolo Davide Farah

Book Chapters

Throughout history, institutions have been the chosen platforms for governing and regulating society. However, in the twenty-first century, with unprecedented connectivity and interdependence, working toward multilateral solutions for global challenges, whether in climate change through the UNFCCC or in trade via the World Trade Organization, has become increasingly complex. This rise in complexity within the international landscape has not been met with proportional attention to cooperation, conflict resolution, and harmonizing human values.

It is relevant to highlight the intersection between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and broader questions within international humanitarian law, (IHL) its interconnections and intertwinement with International Criminal …

The Ukraine Crisis And The Future Of International Courts And Tribunals, Milena Sterio

Law Faculty Articles and Essays

The Ukraine crisis is an example of modern-day conflict which poses various accountability challenges and demonstrates that not a single existing prosecutorial mechanism is capable of achieving a full measure of accountability while fulfilling the different goals of international criminal justice. As discussed in this Article, the prosecution of a sufficient number of Russian perpetrators of atrocities, as well as of Russian leaders, conducted legitimately and effectively, will necessitate the utilization of almost all accountability models - Ukrainian courts, a war crime chamber, the ICC, as well as an ad hoc aggression tribunal. The Ukrainian crisis demonstrates that all international …

Law School News: Fateful Decisions Led To The War In Ukraine 04-25-2022, Gregory W. Bowman

Life of the Law School (1993- )

No abstract provided.

The Visualities And Aesthetics Of Prosecuting Aged Defendants, Mark Drumbl, Caroline Fournet

Scholarly Articles

The prosecution—whether domestic or international—of international crimes and atrocities may implicate extremely aged defendants. Much has been written about the legalisms that inhere (or not) in trying these barely alive individuals. Very little however has been written about the aesthetics the barely alive encrust into the architecture of courtrooms, the optics these defendants suffuse into the trial process, and the expressive value of punishing them. This is what we seek to do in this project.

Unequal Enforcement Of The Law: Targeting Aggressors For Mass Atrocity Prosecutions, Nancy Amoury Combs

Nancy Combs

It is a central tenet of the laws of war that they apply equally to all parties to a conflict. For this reason, a party that illegally launches a war benefits from all the same rights as a party that must defend against the illegal aggression. Countless philosophers have shown that this so-called equal application doctrine is morally indefensible and that defenders should have more rights and fewer responsibilities than aggressors. The equal application doctrine retains the support of legal scholars, however, because they reasonably fear that applying different rules to different warring parties will substantially reduce overall compliance with …

Unequal Enforcement Of The Law: Targeting Aggressors For Mass Atrocity Prosecutions, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

It is a central tenet of the laws of war that they apply equally to all parties to a conflict. For this reason, a party that illegally launches a war benefits from all the same rights as a party that must defend against the illegal aggression. Countless philosophers have shown that this so-called equal application doctrine is morally indefensible and that defenders should have more rights and fewer responsibilities than aggressors. The equal application doctrine retains the support of legal scholars, however, because they reasonably fear that applying different rules to different warring parties will substantially reduce overall compliance with …

Deconstructing The Epistemic Challenges To Mass Atrocity Prosecutions, Nancy Amoury Combs

Faculty Publications

Mass atrocity prosecutions are credited with advancing a host of praiseworthy objectives. They are believed to impose much-needed retribution, deter future atrocities, and affirm the rule of law in previously lawless societies. However, mass atrocity prosecutions will accomplish none of these laudable ends unless they are able to find accurate facts. Convicting the appropriate individuals of the appropriate crimes is a necessary and foundational condition for the success of mass atrocity prosecutions. But it is a condition that is frequently difficult to meet, as mass atrocity prosecutions are often bedeviled by pervasive and invidious obstacles to accurate fact-finding. This Article …

Opposing International Justice: Kenya’S Integrated Backlash Strategy Against The Icc, Laurence R. Helfer, Anne E. Showalter

Faculty Scholarship

The government of Kenya has employed a wide range of strategies to undermine the recently-dismissed prosecutions of President Uhuru Kenyatta and Deputy President William Ruto before the International Criminal Court (ICC). This Article argues that these strategies are part of an integrated backlash campaign against the ICC, one that encompasses seemingly unrelated actions in multiple global, regional and national venues. We identify three overarching themes that connect these diverse measures— politicizing complementarity, regionalizing political opposition, and pairing instances of cooperation and condemnation to diffuse accusations of impunity. By linking its discrete acts of opposition to these three themes, the government …

Foreign Assistance Complicity, Alexander K.A. Greenawalt

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

When does a government’s provision of assistance to foreign armed groups cross the line from legitimate foreign policy to criminal aiding and abetting of those who use the aid to commit atrocities? The question presents one of the most difficult dilemmas in criminal justice, one that has deep normative implications and has provoked sharp splits among the U.S. federal courts and international tribunals that have faced it.

In 2013, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) sent shockwaves through international legal circles when it acquitted former Yugoslav Army chief Momčilo Perišić of aiding and …

After Atrocity: Optimizing Un Action Toward Accountability For Human Rights Abuses, Steven R. Ratner

Michigan Journal of International Law

It is a great honor for me to be here to deliver the John Humphrey Lecture. Humphrey led one of those lives within the UN that shaped what the organization has become today—as one of the first generation of UN civil servants, he was to human rights what Ralph Bunche was to peacekeeping, or Brian Urquhart to UN mediation. To read his diaries, so beautifully edited by John Hobbins, is to see a world that has in many ways vanished, a nearly entirely male club, mostly of Westerners, that hammered out new treaties and mechanisms over fine wine and cigars …

From Prosecutorial To Reparatory: A Valuable Post-Conflict Change Of Focus, Nancy A. Combs

Michigan Journal of International Law

The ICC is well known in international legal circles. Indeed, everyone who knows anything about international law knows that the ICC is the acronym for the International Criminal Court, the body charged with prosecuting international crimes around the globe. Created in 2002, the ICC was intended to “put an end to impunity” for the perpetrators of international crimes” and to affirm “that the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole must not go unpunished.”1 Imagine, however, a world where the “ICC” instead was an acronym for the International Compensation Court. That is, what if the …

Big Fish, Small Ponds: International Crimes In National Courts, Elizabeth B. Ludwin King

Indiana Law Journal

The principle of complementarity in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court anticipates that perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity will be tried in domestic courts unless there is no state with jurisdiction willing or able to do so. This Article examines the situation where a state might be willing to engage in meaningful local justice but temporarily lacks the capability to do so due to the effects of the conflict. It argues that where the state submits a detailed proposal to the International Criminal Court (ICC) outlining the steps necessary to gain or regain the …

Inciting Genocide With Words, Richard A. Wilson

Michigan Journal of International Law

During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, observers emphasized the role of media propaganda in inciting Rwandan Hutus to attack the Tutsi minority group, with one claiming that the primary tools of genocide were “the radio and the machete.” As a steady stream of commentators referred to “radio genocide” and “death by radio” and “the soundtrack to genocide,” a widespread consensus emerged that key responsibility for the genocide lay with the Rwandan media. Mathias Ruzindana, prosecution expert witness at the ICTR, supports this notion, writing, “In the case of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, the effect of language was lethal . …

Judging Leaders Who Facilitate Crimes By A Foreign Army: International Courts Differ On A Novel Legal Issue, Mugambi Jouet

Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law

In one of the most significant cases in the history of international criminal law, Prosecutor v. Perisic, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) effectively addressed an issue of first impression: may a military or political leader be convicted for knowingly facilitating crimes by another state's army? The influential tribunal answered this question in the negative--knowledge that the recipients of military assistance are perpetrating crimes is essentially irrelevant absent evidence that the facilitator specifically intended that crimes occur. The ICTY Appeals Chamber thus acquitted Serbian General Momilo Peridid, who had been convicted at trial of knowingly aiding and …

Toward A Legal Theory On The Responsibility To Protect, Monica Hakimi

Articles

Over the past several decades, the central focus of international law has shifted from protecting only sovereign states to protecting individuals. Still, the worst imaginable human rights violations—genocides, ethnic cleansings, crimes against humanity, and systemic war crimes—occur with alarming frequency. And the international response is often slow or ineffectual. The most recent development for addressing this problem is the “responsibility to protect,” an idea that has received so much attention that it now goes simply by R2P. Almost all heads of state have endorsed R2P. The U.N. Secretary General has made R2P a top priority and issued multiple reports on …

The Michigan Guidelines On The Exclusion Of International Criminals

Michigan Journal of International Law

With a view to promoting a shared understanding of the proper approach to Article 1(F)(a) exclusion from refugee status, we have engaged in sustained collaborative study and reflection on relevant norms and state practice. Our research was debated and refined at the Sixth Colloquium on Challenges in International Refugee Law, convened in March 2013 by the University of Michigan’s Program in Refugee and Asylum Law. These Guidelines are the product of that endeavor, and reflect the consensus of Colloquium participants on how decision makers can best ensure the application of Article 1(F)(a) in a manner that conforms to international legal …

Human Rights Obligations To The Poor, Monica Hakimi

Book Chapters

Poverty unquestionably detracts from the human rights mission. Modern human rights law recognizes a broad range of rights - for example, "to life, liberty, and security of person" and to adequate "food, clothing, and medical care."1 Any number of those rights might go unrealized in conditions of extreme poverty. However, human rights law has always been partly aspirational. For those seeking to improve the lives of the poor, the key question is not what rights exist but how to make those rights operational. What does human rights law actually require of states? And how might its obligations benefit the poor?

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

Michigan Journal of International Law

The creation of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL or the Court) in early 2002 generated high expectations within the international community. The SCSL was generally deemed to herald a new model or benchmark for the assessment of future ad hoc international criminal courts. As the Court completes the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor in The Hague-its last-nine years later, this Article offers an early and broad assessment of whether it has fulfilled its promise. More specifically, this Article examines whether the SCSL has achieved, or more accurately-because its trials are still ongoing-whether it is achieving justice. …

An Emerging Norm - Determining The Meaning And Legal Status Of The Responsibility To Protect, Jonah Eaton

Michigan Journal of International Law

The responsibility to protect, from its recent nativity in the 2001 report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS), is the latest round in an old debate pitting the principle of nonintervention in the internal affairs of states against allowing such intervention to prevent gross and systematic violations of human rights. Advocates for the concept see it as an important new commitment by the international community, injecting new meaning into the tragically threadbare promise to never again allow mass atrocities to occur unchallenged. ICISS offered the concept of responsibility to protect as a new way to confront …

State Bystander Responsibility, Monica Hakimi

Articles

International human rights law requires states to protect people from abuses committed by third parties. Decision-makers widely agree that states have such obligations, but no framework exists for identifying when states have them or what they require. The practice is to varying degrees splintered, inconsistent, and conceptually confused. This article presents a generalized framework to fill that void. The article argues that whether a state must protect someone from third-party harm depends on the state's relationship with the third party and on the kind of harm caused. A duty-holding state must take reasonable measures to restrain the abuser. That framework …

Failures To Punish: Command Responsibility In Domestic And International Law, Amy J. Sepinwall

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Article embraces one of two contested understandings of what a failure to punish entails. On the first understanding, a military commander's failure to punish is construed solely as a dereliction of duty. Accordingly, his failure to punish constitutes a separate offense from the underlying atrocity that his troops have committed. The failure to punish is, then, a substantive offense in its own right. On a second understanding, for which I argue here, the failure to punish renders the commander criminally liable for the atrocity itself, even if he neither ordered nor even knew about the atrocity before its occurrence. …

Is Poetry A War Crime? Reckoning For Radovan Karadzic The Poet-Warrior, Jay Surdukowski

Michigan Journal of International Law

This Note will suggest that the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) can use Karadzic's texts and affectations to warrior poetry in the pretrial brief and in admitted evidence, if and when Karadzic ultimately appears for trial. The violent nationalism of radio broadcasts, political journals, speeches, interviews, and manifestos have been fair game for the Office of the Prosecutor to make their cases in the last decade in both the Yugoslavia and Rwanda Tribunals. Why should poetry, perhaps the most powerful maker of myth and in the Yugoslavia context, a great mover …

The Promise Of Truth Commissions In Times Of Transition, Mariah Jackson Christensen

Michigan Journal of International Law

Review of Unspeakable Truths: Confronting State Terror and Atrocity by Priscilla B. Hayner

Revisiting The Balkan Crisis: A Un Question; The European Connection And The Us Solution, Jackson N. Maogoto

Jackson Nyamuya Maogoto

This Article examines the conflict in the former Yugoslavia which gave birth to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTFY). The ICTFY established the beginning of a new pattern in the genuine international implementation of international criminal and humanitarian law and the move back to the international model inaugurated at Nuremberg which had in the Cold War era been boldly supplanted by national prosecutions. The Article seeks to show that even this ad hoc tribunal was the by-product of international realpolitik. It was born out of a political desire to redeem the international community’s conscience rather than the …

Rush To Closure: Lessons Of The Tadić Judgment, Jose E. Alvarez

Michigan Law Review

In 1993 and 1994, following allegations of mass atrocities, including systematic killings, rapes, and other horrific forms of violence in Rwanda and the territories of the former Yugoslavia, two ad hoc international war crimes tribunals were established to prosecute individuals for grave violations of international humanitarian law, including genocide. As might be expected, advocates for the creation of these entities - the first international courts to prosecute individuals under international law since the trials at Nuremberg and Tokyo after World War II - aspired to grand goals inspired by, but extending far beyond, the pedestrian aims of ordinary criminal prosecutions. …

The Right To Return Under International Law Following Mass Dislocation: The Bosnia Precedent?, Eric Rosand

Michigan Journal of International Law

On the night of May 2, 1997, some twenty-five abandoned Serb houses were set on fire in the Croat-controlled municipality of Drvar, part of the Muslim-Croat Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was clear from all the circumstances that Croats organized the arson of houses in Drvar to obstruct the return of the original Serb residents to the area. Croat authorities then made a concerted effort to resettle displaced Croats in Drvar in order to solidify a stretch of "ethnically-pure" territory adjacent to the Republic of Croatia. These displaced Bosnian Serbs are just a few of the estimated 2.3 million …

Sovereign Immunity And Violations Of International Jus Cogens - Some Critical Remarks, Andreas Zimmermann

Michigan Journal of International Law

The scope of this article, like the one to which it responds, is limited. It does not purport to resolve any question relating to the municipal law of the United States, such as the interpretation of the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. Instead, it considers the problem from a purely international law perspective. Furthermore, it does not indulge in a complete description of attempts made by the Federal Republic of Germany to pay compensation - as far as feasible - for all the blatant human rights violations committed by Nazi Germany in the period 1933-1945.

The Emptiness Of The Concept Of Jus Cogens, As Illustrated By The War In Bosnia-Herzegovina, A. Mark Weisburd

Michigan Journal of International Law

The aim of this article is neither to condemn departures from jus cogens nor to engage in verbal gymnastics designed to obfuscate the fact that the international community is treating or will treat "peremptory norms" as moralisms irrelevant in practical terms. Rather, this article seeks to show that the problem lies in the concept of jus cogens itself. More specifically, the article intends to make the case that the concept is intellectually indefensible - at best useless and at worst harmful in the practical conduct of international relations.

Chapter Vi Penal Sanctions For Maltreatment Of Prisoners Of War, Howard S. Levie

International Law Studies

No abstract provided.