Criminal Law Commons^™

Thwarting A New Start? Foreign Convictions, Sentencing And Collateral Sanctions, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

None available.

Since When Is Dicta Enough To Trump Fourth Amendment Rights? The Aftermath Of Florida V. J.L., Melanie D. Wilson

Scholarly Articles

Unfortunately for individual liberty, and the inestimable right to personal security, the Supreme Court's extraneous language in its otherwise, well-reasoned decision in Florida v. J.L., and the lower federal courts' interpretation of that extraneous language, have jeopardized the Constitutional right to be free from capricious stops and frivolous frisks, both of which necessarily intrude on the sanctity of the person and sometimes "inflict great indignity and arouse strong resentment . . . ." When read logically and narrowly, the J.L. decision holds that an anonymous telephone tip, alone, does not give law enforcement a sufficient legal basis to stop or …

Collective Violence And Individual Punishment: The Criminality Of Mass Atrocity, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

There is a recent proliferation of courts and tribunals to prosecute perpetrators of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. The zenith of this institution-building is the permanent International Criminal Court, which came into force in 2002. Each of these new institutions rests on the foundational premise that it is appropriate to treat the perpetrator of mass atrocity in the same manner that domestic criminal law treats the common criminal. The modalities and rationales of international criminal law are directly borrowed from the domestic criminal law of those states that dominate the international order. In this Article, I challenge this …

Law And Atrocity: Settling Accounts In Rwanda, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

Ten years ago, genocide ravaged the tiny African nation of Rwanda. In the wake of this violence, Rwanda has struggled to reconstruct, rebuild, and reconcile. Law-in particular, criminal trials for alleged perpetrators of genocide- has figured prominently among various policy mechanisms in postgenocide Rwanda. Criminal trials for Rwandan genocidaires' aspire to achieve several goals. These include exacting retribution, promoting reconciliation, deterring future violence, expressing victims' outrage, maintaining peace, and cultivating a culture of human rights.2 In this Lecture, I examine the extent to which these trials attain these multiple, often competing, and largely overwhelming goals. Part I begins by setting …

Plea Bargaining At The International Criminal Tribunal For The Former Yugoslavia, Ralph Henham, Mark Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) increasingly has turned to plea bargains to resolve the cases before it. A number of factors motor this trend. One is administrative: the ICTY has been subject to considerable pressure from the United Nations Security Council and donor states to accelerate its work. Another is the desire to obtain acknowledgements of responsibility from perpetrators. Moreover, there is concern that, as time passes, the memories of witnesses dim. The rigours of direct and cross-examination may retraumatise those who have survived mass atrocity. ICTY judges also have expressed their understanding that guilty pleas …

The Ictr And Justice For Rwandan Women, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

In this article, I hope to spring from the discussion of the ICTR's gender jurisprudence to a broader conversation that touches on the relationship between this jurisprudence and life for Rwandan women today. In particular, I'd like to consider three questions: What do both the gender jurisprudence and the jurisprudence at large of the ICTR mean to women, individually and collectively, in Rwanda? How do other modalities of accountability that operate in postgenocide Rwanda respond to gender violence and promote gender equality? What is the situation of Rwandan women today?

'Lesser Evils' In The War On Terrorism, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

No abstract provided.

Rights, Culture, And Crime: The Role Of Rule Of Law For The Women Of Afghanistan, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

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 …

Prosecutor V Radislav Krstić: Icty Authenticates Genocide At Srebrenica And Convicts For Aiding And Abetting, Mark Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

The Krstić Appeals Chamber decision makes two major contributions to international criminal law. It also provides a number of additional insights and clarifications. In this case note, I will critically examine the two major contributions. Firstly, Krstić authenticates that genocide was in fact perpetrated against the Bosnian Muslims of Srebrenica. This serves an important didactic purpose. Srebrenica is the only incidence of genocide the ICTY has found amidst the pervasive violence that roiled the former Yugoslavia. Secondly, Krstić narrows the scope of joint criminal enterprise as a mechanism to attribute individual criminal liability for acts perpetrated by groups acting collectively. …

Abusing State Power Or Controlling Risk?: Sex Offender Commitment And Sicherungverwahrung, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

This article addresses a paradigmatic risk-based collateral sanction, the so-called civil confinement. In contrast to many other collateral sanctions, it does not follow automatically but is judicially imposed following a hearing. In Hendricks v. Kansas (1997) the Supreme Court specifically upheld involuntary confinement following a criminal justice sentence for a sexually violent predator. The Kansas statute mandated confinement based on an assessment of dangerousness which had to result from a mental abnormality. Once it characterized the sanction as civil, the Court concluded that procedural protections traditional in the criminal context, such as double jeopardy, do not apply. The narrow majority …

Looking Up, Down And Across: The Icty's Place In The International Legal Order, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

Not available.

Toward A Criminology Of International Crime, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

The criminal adjudication of those who perpetrate egregious human rights violations has gained normative currency among international lawyers and rights activists. This norm has encouraged the construction of a variety of international legal institutions, specifically tribunals and courts. This Article tracks the logic of this norm and suggests that, at its root, it represents a general extension of Western municipal criminal law, and Anglo-American common law methodologies in particular, to the international context and cases of mass violence. This triggers two interrelated concerns: is this extension (1) theoretically sustainable and (2) operationally effective for adjudicating wrongdoing in all cases of …

Innocent Until Proven Guilty: The Origins Of A Legal Maxim, Kenneth Pennington

Scholarly Articles

The maxim,' Innocent until proven guilty', has had a good run in the twentieth century. The United Nations incorporated the principle in its Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 under article eleven, section one. The maxim also found a place in the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights in 1953 [as article 6, section 2] and was incorporated into the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [as article 14, section 2]. This was a satisfying development for Americans because there are few maxims that have a greater resonance in Anglo-American, common law jurisprudence. The Anglo-American …

Victimhood In Our Neighborhood: Terrorist Crime, Taliban Guilt, And The Asymmetries Of The International Legal Order, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

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 …

"Collateral Damage": No Re-Entry For Drug Offenders, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

None available.

First Peoples, First Principles: The Sentencing Commission's Obligation To Reject False Images Of Criminal Offenders, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

Driven by public concern about sex offenses, in recent years Congress has repeatedly enhanced the penalties for federal sex offenders. In doing so, it has responded to the predominant portrayal of sex offenders as inhuman predators, and heeded the demand of victims rights groups for longer sentences. However, it has failed to consider the special make-up of the sex offender population sentenced in federal court. While only a small number of all sex offenders are sentenced in federal court, over half of them are Native Americans. The culpability and future risk of many Native American sex offenders, however, differs dramatically …

Judging The 11 September Terrorist Attack, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

Not available.

Immigration Threats And Rewards: Effective Law Enforcement Tools In The "War" On Terrorism?, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

None available.

The Death Penalty In The United States: Following The European Lead, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

None available.

Terrorist Crime, Taliban Guilt, Western Victims, And International Law, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

On September 11th, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists attacked the United States and killed approximately 3,000 civilians from 81 countries. Traditionally, international law treats armed attacks differently than criminal attacks. States launch armed attacks against other states; organized insurgency movements having some level of command or political structure also may launch internal armed attacks against state governments. Individuals or groups, on the other hand, initiate criminal attacks. The law responds to criminal attacks through investigation and trial. The law permits states to use force against other states in self-defense to armed attacks.The September 11th attack was a war-like attack undertaken against a …

The Taliban’S ‘Other’ Crimes, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

This paper explores possible legal responses to the Taliban's 'other' crimes--those inflicted against Afghans during Taliban rule. This criminality largely has been rendered invisible by virtue of the international community's focus on punishing the Taliban's support of transnational terrorists, in particular al-Qaeda. This invisibility is problematic given that carefully constructed prosecutions of these 'other' crimes could play an important role in post-conflict reconciliation and national reconstruction in Afghanistan. Such reconciliation and reconstruction can legitimise a representative post-conflict state and curb terrorist recidivism.

Restorative Justice And Collective Responsibility: Lessons For And From The Rwandan Genocide, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

Genocide struck Rwanda in 1994. Since then, national and international trials have endeavored to promote reconciliation, deterrence, peace, justice, and human rights. This article posits a disconnect between these trials and the attainment of their avowed goals. This disconnect emerges in part from the influential agendas of international lawyers who equate selective criminal prosecution with the "rule of law" and espouse criminal prosecution as the preferred and uniform response to mass atrocity. Creating a presumption in favor of criminal prosecution has dampened the need to explore whether such trials actually are suitable for the particular afflicted society. A socio-legal analysis …

Appeals In The Ad Hoc International Criminal Tribunals: Structure, Procedure, And Recent Cases, Mark A. Drumbl, Kenneth S. Gallant

Scholarly Articles

Two international criminal tribunals are developing and remaking much of international humanitarian law—the law of genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. These are the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (“ICTY”)and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (“ICTR”).

For the first time, appellate practice and procedure have become vital to the development of international humanitarian law. These two ad hoc Tribunals have substantial appellate as well as trial jurisdiction. In this, they are quite different from their historic predecessors, the International Military Tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo following World War II, which had no appellate jurisdiction or appellate …

Juridical And Jurisdictional Disconnects, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

Although extraterritorial trials for human rights abusers certainly achieve some justice, this Article posits -- through a case-study of post-genocide Rwanda -- that the effects of such trials are circumscribed by the fact they may have little meaning among perpetrators and victims in post-conflict societies. This limited meaning particularly attaches to trials conducted extraterritorially through international tribunals as well as trials conducted in foreign national courts through the exercise of what loosely is called "universal jurisdiction." This circumscribed meaning results in these trials' having limited deterrence effects, although they may go some way to satisfying the deontological need to punish …

Continuing Payment Of One's Debt To Society: The German Model Of Felon Disenfranchisement As An Alternative, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

None available.

International Human Rights, International Humanitarian Law, And Environmental Security: Can The International Criminal Court Bridge The Gaps?, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

The gap between international humanitarian law and environmental security should trouble international lawyers. Just as armed conflict often creates a context in which the most serious human rights abuses occur, so too, does it create a similar context for the infliction of wanton and extensive destruction to the environment. This destruction creates profound environmental insecurity. Part (II) of this Article explores the insecurities caused by the environmental consequences of armed conflict. Although the international community has shown considerable concern for the humanitarian consequences of war, it has been significantly more hesitant in accounting for war's environmental consequences. It is for …

Punishment, Postgenocide: From Guilt To Shame To Civis In Rwanda, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

Following the 1994 Rwandan genocide, national and international trials set out to encourage national reconciliation, promote peace, punish perpetrators, foster a culture of human rights, and effect justice. In this Article, Professor Mark Drumbl questions the ability of these trials to achieve these goals and suggests they may in fact aggravate ethnic identity politics, thereby threatening Rwanda's long-term stability. He argues that the highly interdependent yet dualist nature of Rwandan society, together with the widespread level of participation in and victimization by the genocide, create a situation where accountability for the violence and the deterrence of future violence can be …

Sclerosis: Retributive Justice And The Rwandan Genocide, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

In the 1994 Rwandan genocide 800,000 people were massacred. The victims were overwhelmingly of the minority Tutsi ethnic group and the aggressors of the majority Hutu group. At present, 125,000 Hutu prisoners remain incarcerated while awaiting trial on genocide-related charges. This article argues that these trials, and the extensive incapacitation that necessarily precedes them, may do little to promote justice, regime legitimacy, or national reconciliation in Rwanda. This, in turn, raises broader questions about the role of criminal punishment and sentencing in situations of mass violence. Criminality usually attaches to deviant conduct. Mass political violence -- from Nazi Germany to …

Punishment Goes Global: International Criminal Law, Conflict Zones, And Gender (In)Equality, Mark A. Drumbl

Scholarly Articles

The creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) enables the international community to hold accountable those who inflict violence in the form of sexual and ethnic hatred. Drawing on case studies from Rwanda and Bosnia, the author observes the extent to which retributive criminal justice can deter offenders and foster structural societal change.

A New Start Calls For A Broadened Perspective, Nora V. Demleitner

Scholarly Articles

Not available.