scholarly journals Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo: Judgment on the Appeal of Mr. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo against Trial Chamber III's “Judgment Pursuant to Article 74 of the Statute” (Int'l Crim. Ct.)

2018 ◽  
Vol 57 (6) ◽  
pp. 1031-1079 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Powderly
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
First Case ◽  
Majority Judgment ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
History Of

On June 8, 2018, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) delivered its eagerly anticipated judgment on the appeal of Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo against his conviction by Trial Chamber III in March 2016 for war crimes (murder, rape, and pillage) and crimes against humanity (murder and rape). Bemba's conviction was notable for the variety of “firsts” it gave rise to for the ICC. As a former vice-president of the transitional government of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and president of the Mouvement de libération du Congo (MLC), he became the most senior leader to be successfully convicted by the ICC. His conviction was the first in which an individual was found responsible for the commission of crimes pursuant to command responsibility under Article 28 of the Rome Statute. Of particular significance was the fact that this was the first conviction at the ICC for acts of rape and sexual violence committed against women and men. Finally, this was the first case in the history of international criminal law where members of the defense team were arrested, tried, and convicted of crimes against the administration of justice during the course of the trial. The trial judgment was heralded as “a turning point in the ICC's history” following the debacles in the Lubanga, Katanga, Chui, and Kenya cases. However, we now have a new addition to the list of firsts: with the Appeals Chamber's majority judgment (decided 3-2), Bemba becomes the first accused to have his conviction overturned in full.

“All Necessary and Reasonable Measures” – The Bemba Case and the Threshold for Command Responsibility

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martha M. Bradley ◽  
Aniel de Beer
Keyword(s):  
Central African Republic ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Republic Of The Congo

On 21 March 2016 Trial Chamber iii of the International Criminal Court unanimously convicted the former Vice-President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, on the basis of the doctrine of command responsibility for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by troops under his command in the Central African Republic from 2002 to 2003. On 8 June 2018 however, the Appeals Chamber reversed the judgment and acquitted Bemba of all charges. The Appeals Chamber held that the Trial Chamber erred in finding that Bemba failed to take all necessary and reasonable measures to prevent and repress crimes committed by his subordinates as contemplated in Article 28(a)(ii) of the Rome Statute. This article evaluates the meaning of “all necessary and reasonable measures” in the context of command responsibility and considers whether Bemba met this threshold in order to avoid incurring criminal responsibility under Article 28(a)(ii).

s.VIII Boundaries, Ch.33 The Core Crimes of International Criminal Law

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Schwöbel-Patel Christine
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
The Core ◽  
History Of ◽  
Political Economic

The ‘core’ crimes set out in the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute - the crime of genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and aggression - are overwhelmingly assumed to be the most important international crimes. In this chapter, I unsettle the assumption of their inherent importance by revealing and problematising the civilizational, political-economic, and aesthetical biases behind designating these crimes as ‘core’. This is done by shedding light on discontinuities in the history of the core crimes, and unsettling the progress narrative ‘from Nuremberg to Rome’. More specifically, crimes associated with drug control are placed in conversation with the accepted history of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to exemplify a systematic editing of the dominant narrative of international criminal law.

Prosecutor v. Callixte Mbarushimana: Judgment on the Appeal of the Prosecutor Against the Decision of Pre-Trial Chamber I of 16 December 2011 Entitled “Decision on the Confirmation of Charges” (Int'l Crim. Ct.)

2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (2) ◽  
pp. 417-439 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth Frolich
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Republic Of The Congo

On May 30, 2012, the Appeals Chamber (Chamber) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) voted unanimously to dismiss the appeal of the Prosecution against the decision of the Pre-Trial Chamber not to confirm the charges against the alleged Congolese warlord Callixte Mbarushimana. The Prosecution had alleged Mbarushimana was criminally responsible under Article 25(3)(d) of the Rome Statute (Statute) for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by members of the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) in the Kivu provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The Prosecution had appealed the Pre-Trial Chamber’s decision on three separate issues, all of which were rejected.

On the Outer Limits of Crimes against Humanity: The Concept of Organization within the Policy Requirement: Some Reflections on the March 2010 ICC Kenya Decision

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 855-873 ◽  
Author(s):  
CLAUS KRESS
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Republic

AbstractAt the beginning of the renaissance of international criminal law in the 1990s, the law on crimes against humanity was in a fragile state. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) decisively contributed to the consolidation of customary international law on crimes against humanity and paved the way for its first comprehensive codification in Article 7 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). At the same time, the ICTY in its early decisions already showed a certain inclination to broaden the scope of the application of the crime by downgrading its contextual requirement. More recently, this tendency culminated in the complete abandonment of the policy requirement. While this ‘progressive’ facet of the ICTY's jurisprudence largely took the form of obiter dicta, the Situation in the Republic of Kenya has confronted the ICC with the need to ‘get serious’ about the present state of the law. This has led to a controversy in Pre-Trial Chamber II about the concept of organization in Article 7(2)(a) of the Statute. While the majority essentially follows the path of the more recent case law of the ICTY, the ICTR, and the Special Tribunal for Sierra Leone and supports a liberal interpretation, Judge Kaul prefers to confine the term to state-like organizations and generally calls for caution against too hasty an expansion of the realm of international criminal law stricto sensu. This comment agrees with the main thrust of the Dissenting Opinion and hopes that it will provoke a thorough debate.

scholarly journals IMPORTANCE OF THE BEMBA CASE FOR THE INSTITUTE OF PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY OF COMMANDERS AND OTHER SUPERIORS FOR THE COMMITMENT OF CRIMES AGAINST INTERNATIONAL LAW BY THEIR SUBORDINATES

2021 ◽  
pp. 109-114
Author(s):  
B. I. Nedilko
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Personal Responsibility ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
First Case

This article is devoted to the analysis of the Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo case of the International Criminal Court. He was a Congolese politician, as well as the founder and the head of non-governmental armed group, named “Movement for the Liberation of Congo”, which members committed number of crimes during armed conflict in Central African Republic. The importance of this case lies in the fact, that it was the first case of the International Criminal Court, where the accused was charged with crimes, committed by his subordinates, and not by the accused himself. This article reveals the main contradictions between the judgments of the Trial Chamber, which found Bemba guilty, and the Appeals Chamber, which acquitted him. The legal basics of the institute of personal responsibility of commanders and other superiors in international criminal law, which were formed in the decision of the Appeals Chamber in the Bemba case, are highlighted therein. The author addresses and analyzes the grounds for recognizing commanders and other superiors guilty for committing crimes by their subordinates. It was discovered, that Article 28 of the Rome Statute requires the commanders to take only necessary or reasonable measures to prevent or punish the crimes, committed by their subordinates, not all possible measures at the relevant time. The Trial Chamber should specify what exactly the accused had to do to prevent or punish the crimes, as well as inform the accused of it prior to the hearing. It is also necessary to take into account objective circumstances, that could prevent the commander from adequately responding to the commission of crimes by his subordinates, especially if they operated in the territory of another state. The commander's ability to take the necessary or reasonable measures to prevent or punish the crimes, committed by his subordinates, should be analyzed in relation to each individual crime he is charged with, and not in relation to all the actions of subordinates as a whole. At last, the Appeals Chamber provided an exhaustive list of criteria for determining whether the measures, taken by the commander, were sufficient.

Prosecutor v. Ruto.

2015 ◽  
Vol 109 (3) ◽  
pp. 610-616
Author(s):  
Charles Chernor Jalloh
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Vice President ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Legal Obligations ◽  
Election Violence

On October 9, 2014, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC or Court) unanimously held that, under the ICC Statute, a trial chamber has the power to order witnesses to appear before it to give testimony in pending proceedings, which imposes legal obligations on the individuals concerned to comply. In so ruling, the appellate chamber upheld a controversial trial chamber decision granting the ICC prosecutor’s request to summon eight witnesses to testify in the joint trial of Kenya’s vice president, William Samoei Ruto, and former journalist Joshua arap Sang, both of whom faced charges of crimes against humanity for their alleged role in “post-election violence” that led to the deaths of over twelve hundred people (para. 9).

scholarly journals Situation in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan

2021 ◽  
Vol 115 (4) ◽  
pp. 688-694
Author(s):  
Yurika Ishii
Keyword(s):  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Afghanistan War ◽  
Islamic Republic ◽  
First Case

On March 5, 2020, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) decided to authorize the prosecutor to commence a proprio motu investigation into the alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during the Afghanistan War since 2003. This decision is the first case where the requirements for the authorization of an investigation under Article 15(4) of the ICC Rome Statute (Statute) were tested on appeal. The case lays down a marker as to how the ICC sees the division of roles between the Pre-Trial Chamber and the Office of the Prosecutor. The Appeals Chamber proved willing to give the prosecutor broad discretion at the investigation stage. Without limiting principles, this approach may eventually expand the role of the Court beyond what the Statute permits.

THE CASE OF TAHA YASEEN RAMADAN BEFORE THE IRAQI HIGH TRIBUNAL: AN INSIDER'S PERSPECTIVE

2006 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 181-243
Author(s):  
William H. Wiley
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal ◽  
Vice President ◽  
The United States ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Political Interference ◽  
Saddam Hussein ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Substantive Law

AbstractTaha Yaseen Ramadan was a long-time ally of Saddam Hussein and Vice-President of Iraq at the time of the United States-led invasion in 2003; he was captured by American forces in 2004 and, in 2005-2006, tried before the Iraqi High Tribunal (IHT), alongside Saddam Hussein. The Trial Chamber hearing the case found Taha Yaseen guilty of,inter alia, the crime against humanity of wilful killing; he was handed a sentence of life imprisonment in November 2006. This sentence was appealed by the IHT Prosecutor; the IHT Appellate Chamber responded several days later with an order that the Trial Chamber award Taha Yaseen a capital sentence. The process of re-sentencing, which ultimately led to the execution of Taha Yaseen in March 2007, was, like many other key phases of the trial of Saddam Hussein and Taha Yaseen, undermined by Iraqi political interference emanating, in the main, from the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The fairness of the proceedings against Taha Yaseen and his co-accused was further undermined throughout by the near total ignorance of the those involved in the case (i.e., the Iraqi Judges, Prosecutors and Defence counsel) of the substantive law that they were meant to be applying, in particular, International Criminal Law, which had been received into Iraqi law almostverbatimin 2004 from the Statute of the International Criminal Court. This combination of professional ignorance and political interference gave rise to a travesty of justice that cannot be reversed, that is, the execution of a man who was manifestly not guilty of the crime for which he was hanged.

Better Late than Never: Reparations for Sexual Violence in the Ntaganda case before the International Criminal Court

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 27-47
Author(s):  
Sunneva Gilmore
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Child Soldiers ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Medical Background ◽  
Modest Contribution ◽  
First Time

The Prosecutor v Bosco Ntaganda case at the International Criminal Court (ICC) represents the long awaited first reparation order for sexual violence at the court. This will hopefully see the implementation of reparations for the war crimes and crimes against humanity of rape and sexual slavery among civilians and former child soldiers, after previous cases such as against Jean-Pierre Bembe and Laurent Gbagbo were acquitted of rape. This article drawing from the author's role as a reparation expert in the case, is a reflection on the challenges of designing and providing reparations at the ICC against convicted individuals, as well as amidst insecurity and the COVID-19 infectious disease pandemic. It begins by discussing how the Ntaganda reparation order expanded reparation principles for the first time since the Lubanga case, in particular for crimes of a sexual nature. This is followed by an outline of some of the harms as a result of sexual violence from the perspective of an expert with a medical background. The analysis then turns to the appropriate reparations in this case and the details contained within the chamber's reparation order. Final conclusions consider how the procedural and substantive elements of reparations in this case will be instructive to future cases that address sexual violence. Ultimately, key insights are offered on the modest contribution an appointed reparation expert can do in assisting a trial chamber in the reparation process.

scholarly journals Managing Frozen Assets at the International Criminal Court

2020 ◽  
Vol 18 (3) ◽  
pp. 765-790
Author(s):  
Daley J Birkett
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
The Hague

Abstract On 8 June 2018, more than 10 years after his arrest, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) reversed Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo’s conviction by the Trial Chamber for crimes against humanity and war crimes, acquitting him of all charges. Soon after the start of his time in detention in The Hague, assets belonging to Bemba were frozen by states across a number of jurisdictions at the request of the ICC. Many of these assets remain frozen, more than 18 months after his acquittal. This article examines the consequences of prolonged asset freezes by the ICC through the lens of the Bemba case, demonstrating the existence of gaps in the legal framework applicable to the management of frozen assets under the ICC Statute system and suggesting possible responses thereto at the domestic and international levels.

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