scholarly journals Victims and international criminal justice: a vexed question?

2008 ◽  
Vol 90 (870) ◽  
pp. 441-459 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mina Rauschenbach ◽  
Damien Scalia
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
International Level ◽  
International Regime ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
Justice Systems ◽  
Vexed Question

AbstractDespite the growing attention being paid to “victims” in the framework of criminal proceedings, this attention does not seem to be meeting their needs under either national criminal justice systems or the international regime. In the latter, the difficulties encountered by the victims are aggravated by factors specifically arising from the prosecution and punishment of mass crimes at international level. This has prompted the authors to point out that the prime purpose of criminal law is to convict or acquit the accused, and to suggest that the task of attending to the victims should perhaps be left to other entities.

International Criminal Law as Expressivist Justice

2020 ◽  
pp. 391-416
Author(s):  
Carsten Stahn
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Different Dimensions

This chapter connects expressivism to justice discourse and different dimensions of justice. It claims that expressivism has a more complex role in international criminal justice than publicly admitted. It is a means to reaffirm the purposes and ambitions of the field and to encourage commitment to it, and to enact and perform law. It also provides a more realistic understanding of justice. It views justice not as something ‘objective’ or ‘definitive’ that can be delivered through criminal proceedings, but rather as an intersubjective process that is triggered through messages and communicative relationships: justice is a message.

scholarly journals Optics, Aged Witnesses and Aged Defendants: Habré at the Extraordinary African Chambers

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Samuel Matsiko
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Trial Process ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
Justice Systems

Abstract The prosecution of international crimes in domestic and international criminal justice systems may involve aged defendants. Such prosecutions often implicate aged witnesses as well. There is a dearth of literature not only on the expressive value and optics of punishing aged defendants but also on the role of aged witnesses in the trial process. The need to interrogate these optics and perceptions—be it from an empirical or a theoretical perspective—is not only necessary, it is also timely. This article assesses the prosecution of Chadian dictator Hissène Habré in 2015–2016 at the Extraordinary African Chambers. This trial not only concerned an aged defendant, but also over 90 witnesses, the majority of whom was aged. This article explores the dialectics between the optics of punishing aged defendants and the optics of aged witnesses at the Habré trial.

scholarly journals Formalism versus pragmatism – A comparative legal and empirical analysis of the German and Dutch criminal justice systems with regard to effectiveness and efficiency

2021 ◽  
pp. 1023263X2110059
Author(s):  
Robin Hofmann
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Legal Practice ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Procedural Law ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
Effectiveness And Efficiency ◽  
Justice Systems

The German and the Dutch criminal justice systems not only share a common legal history but also follow the inquisitorial tradition with the prosecution playing a strong role. Despite these commonalities, there are a number of remarkable differences between the two jurisdictions, particularly with a view to procedural law and legal practices. While the German criminal law is known for being formal and rather doctrinal, the Dutch system is strongly driven by pragmatism and efficiency. This efficiency has become an important factor for the progressing Europeanization of criminal law and increasingly influences German criminal procedural law. This article compares selected aspects of the Dutch and German criminal justice systems. While previous legal comparative studies of the two neighbouring countries have focused on substantive criminal law, this paper will mainly deal with procedural criminal law and prosecutorial practices. The emphasis will be on criminal justice effectiveness and efficiency. Some of the questions addressed are: what constitutes an efficient criminal justice system? How is efficiency defined and implemented in legal practice? A variety of indicators for criminal justice efficiency are proposed and applied to criminal proceedings, prosecutorial practices and the sentencing systems in both countries.

(Völker‑)Strafrecht im Zeichen der Erschütterung ordnungskonstitutiver Gewissheiten

2020 ◽  
Vol 103 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-198
Author(s):  
Christoph Burchard
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Empirical Data ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
The Status

We experience today the disruption of certainties that are foundational to legal orders. This also affects criminal law, how we practice and theorize it. The digital revolution, the rise of authoritarianism and populism as well as the challenges to western (liberal) multilateralism, all of this (and many other developments) weaken the validity of the foundational conditions of criminal justice systems. This is especially true of international criminal justice. This (brief and programmatic) contribution argues that we must take these upheavals of certainties seriously. To this end, (international/ criminal) law must be justified with good reasons and better empirical data. Meer symbolism as well as an uncritical adherence to the status quo ante do longer seem feasible.

International Criminal Justice History Writing as Anachronism

2019 ◽  
pp. 72-89
Author(s):  
Frédéric Mégret
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
History Writing ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Individual Accountability

This chapter focuses on the extent to which the contemporary project of international criminal justice cannot easily lay claim to what it imagines to be its past, because that past, despite superficial similarities, often exhibited fundamentally different concerns. It highlights three areas in which international criminal justice today is arguably dramatically different from how it was understood up to the 1990s. First, international criminal justice was for a long time much less obsessed with the criminalization of international law prohibitions specifically, and much more interested in the transnational dimensions of the criminal law. Second, it was much less committed to a strict model of individual accountability under international law and much more willing to see the state as the central pivot of international criminal responsibility. Third, it was intimately linked to peace projects whereas it has become intimately associated to the fight against atrocities and mass human rights violations.

s.III Rationales, Ch.9 Taking Internationalism Seriously: Why International Criminal Law Matters

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gur-Arye Miriam ◽  
Harel Alon
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Institutions ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Justice ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Penal Institutions ◽  
Traditional Institutions ◽  
Domestic Level

This chapter focuses on why international criminal law (ICL) matters, by generating a distinctive philosophical vision for the project of international criminal justice. Specifically, this chapter rejects the notion that ICL is simply a gap-filler for ineffective penal institutions at the domestic level. So much of the literature is characterized by an assumption, buttressed by the International Criminal Court’s complementarity principle, that international tribunals simply spring into action to resolve the lacunae in domestic legal processes when armed conflict or other disruptions dismantle traditional institutions for criminal enforcement. In contrast, the chapter argues that the goods of ICL and the values it promotes can only be provided by international entities. In that respect, international justice is not a second-best alternative to domestic justice but is, rather, necessarily international because international institutions are specifically designed to redress wrongs that harm the interests of the international community as a whole.

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