s.V Modalities, Ch.21 From Machinery to Motivation: The Lost Legacy of Criminal Organizations Liability

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohamed Saira
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Criminal Organizations ◽  
Military Tribunal ◽  
Mass Atrocity ◽  
Atrocity Crimes ◽  
Missed Opportunity

This chapter considers the lost legacy of the concept of criminal organizations in international criminal law. When the notion of declaring the criminality of organizations, in addition to determining the guilt of individuals, was first proposed in anticipation of the trial before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, organizational criminality was viewed as an opportunity both to recognize the role of organizations in nurturing mass criminality and to facilitate the prosecution of masses of individuals. But by the time the Tribunal was in operation, the first of these goals had faded away, and organizational criminality represented nothing more than a tool to accomplish individual criminality. This chapter argues that treating criminal organizations as a means to secure individual criminal liability represents a loss, a missed opportunity, in international criminal law. The condemnation of organizations that can attend organizational liability could have created within international criminal law an opportunity to expose the role of organizations in the perpetration of mass atrocity, to call attention to and analyze the institutionalized nature of mass atrocity crimes, which makes these crimes not only unthinkably destructive, but also inherently and importantly distinct from criminal wrongdoing in which a person’s conduct diverges from the standards of most of society. The missed opportunity of abandoning criminal organizations liability is particularly acute, this chapter contends, in light of the research in the decades since Nuremberg establishing how organizations affect individual behaviour. With greater understanding about the mechanisms for individuals’ desire to conform with peers, to obey authorities, and to rationalize their own actions, we can now see that organizations contribute to individuals’ decisions to commit crimes by providing forums and creating environments in which individuals come to believe that criminal behaviour is necessary or normal or even good, or in which individuals fail to recognize their own part in a criminal system. The organizations thus provide not only the machinery for atrocity, but also the motivation. By abandoning the substantive core of criminal organizations, international criminal law fails to identify the foundational role of organizations in creating mass atrocity crimes.

Responsibility to Protect in International Criminal Law

Postgenocide ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 112-134
Author(s):  
Jobair Alam
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Minority Group ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
National Politics ◽  
Mass Atrocity ◽  
Jus Cogens ◽  
Atrocity Crimes ◽  
Normative Foundations

This chapter considers the worst contemporary state-led prosecution of a minority group, which amounts to genocide, namely the Rohingya. It examines the atrocity crimes committed against them under international criminal law (ICL) and the application of Responsibility to Protect (R2P) thereupon. It suggests that such atrocities are constitutive of violations of jus cogens which warrants obligatio erga omnes. Accordingly, the perpetrators can be brought to justice under inter/national and universal jurisdictions, which, nonetheless, has not yet occurred. Given the failure of ICL mechanisms, the normative foundations of the R2P can provide valuable tools for intercepting mass atrocity crimes. The Rohingya—who face direct and structural violence at the hands of the Myanmar state—need protection from these crimes. The chapter explains how insular national politics can undo the gains made by the international community in upholding the distinctiveness of humanitarian claims through the application of the R2P.

Move fast and break societies: the weaponisation of social media and options for accountability under international criminal law

2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 331-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shannon Raj Singh
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
The Media ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Atrocity Crimes

This article considers the application of international criminal law to the role of social media entities in fuelling atrocity crimes, and the legal theories that could be most valuable in fostering their accountability. While incitement of atrocity crimes is one way of framing social media's role in fomenting conflict, this paper argues that it may be more productive to conceptualise social media's role in atrocity crimes through the lens of complicity, drawing inspiration not from the media cases in international criminal law jurisprudence, but rather by evaluating the use of social media as a weapon, which, under certain circumstances, ought to face accountability under international criminal law.

Collective Reparations and the Limitations of International Criminal Justice to Respond to Mass Atrocity

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nadia Tapia Navarro
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Trust Fund ◽  
Legal Fiction ◽  
Mass Atrocity ◽  
Collective Dimension

Crimes under international criminal law (icl) are complex and are necessarily committed by complex nets of perpetrators with different degrees of responsibility. Claims have been raised against icl as a mechanism overly focused on the legal fiction of an individual perpetrator, obscuring the true collective dimension of the crimes. Despite these criticisms, icl has incorporated a mechanism to address this collective dimension, at least on the side of the victims: collective reparations. However, the emerging use of collective reparations faces important challenges in an avenue based on an individual-perpetrator logic. Here, I identify current difficulties in the early practice of collective reparations in international criminal justice. These difficulties relate mainly with procedural issues and the role of the ‘adjunct mechanisms’ such as the Trust Fund for Victims (tfv). I submit that these difficulties reflect the inherent tensions present in the asymmetrical treatment of the collective dimension of the crimes

The “Kouwenhoven” Case

2019 ◽  
Vol 181 ◽  
pp. 568-704
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Arms Embargo ◽  
Witness Statements

Economics, trade and finance — Economic sanctions — Liberia — UN Security Council Resolutions 1343 (2001) and 1408 (2002) — Implementation of arms embargo under Dutch law — Whether sanctions regime violatedInternational criminal law — Difference between perpetrator and accomplice liability — Complicity in war crimes — Requirement that defendant promoted or facilitated the commission of war crimes — Conditional intent — Whether defendant consciously accepted the probability that war crimes would be committed in connection with his material support — Risk of doing business with a government engaged in international criminal activityInternational criminal law — Evidence — Admissibility and weight of witness statements — Factors relevant to assessing witness statements obtained in post-conflict environment — Coercion of witnesses — Whether inconsistencies in witness statements requiring acquittalInternational criminal law — Circumstances excusing unlawful conduct — National emergency — Whether violations of arms embargo and laws and customs of war justified by right to self-defence under international lawJurisdiction — Universal jurisdiction — War crimes — Prosecution of a Dutch national for offences committed abroad — Whether conduct of investigation by Dutch authorities making prosecution inadmissible — Whether amnesty scheme in Liberia barrier to prosecution — No violation of fair trial rightsWar and armed conflict — Existence of armed conflict — Whether armed conflict international or internal — Limited gap between norms applicable to international versus non-international armed conflict — Whether violations of laws and customs of war giving rise to individual criminal liability under Dutch law — The law of the Netherlands

To Withdraw or Not to Withdraw: A Structural Analysis of the Scope and Limits of Voluntary Withdrawal of Criminal Attempt in the Rome Statute

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 1167-1192
Author(s):  
Igor Vuletić
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Crime ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Clear Understanding ◽  
Voluntary Withdrawal ◽  
Subjective Conception

Abstract Voluntary withdrawal of criminal attempt is one of the fundamental institutes of the general part of criminal law, originally codified in international criminal law in the Rome Statute. Since the Statute attributed significant legal effects to withdrawal, which excludes the liability for criminal attempt, it is important to establish a clear understanding on its scope and limitations. This article analyses controversial issues related to the legal nature of withdrawal as grounds for exclusion of criminal liability, withdrawal of individual offenders and accomplices, and provides interpretations on potential solutions for these issues. The analysis is based on the subjective conception of withdrawal, under which its essence lays in the rejection of the initial criminal intent, while taking into consideration withdrawal in the context of international crime. Based on the analysis, an original three-level test for the determination of withdrawal in the future practice of the International Criminal Court, (icc) is proposed.

scholarly journals Memorializing Dissent: Justice Pal in Tokyo

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 114 ◽  
pp. 111-116
Author(s):  
Mark A. Drumbl
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Far East ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Street Art ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Military Tribunal ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Second World

Memorials and monuments are envisioned as positive ways to honor victims of atrocity. Such displays are taken as intrinsically benign, respectful, and in accord with the arc of justice. Is this correlation axiomatic, however? Art, after all, may be a vehicle for multiple normativities, contested experiences, and variable veracities. Hence, in order to really speak about the relationships between the aesthetic and international criminal law, one must consider the full range of initiatives—whether pop-up ventures, alleyway graffiti, impromptu ceremonies, street art, and grassroots public histories—prompted by international criminal trials. Courts may be able to stage their own outreach, to be sure, but they cannot micromanage the outreach of others. And the outreach of others may look and sound strikingly different than that curated and manicured by courts. This essay presents one such othered outreach initiative: a memorial in Tokyo dedicated to Justice Radhabinod Pal of India, who authored a vehement dissent at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE). The IMTFE was established in 1946 to prosecute Japan's leadership in the aftermath of the Second World War. Pal would have acquitted each defendant. This essay describes Justice Pal's legal philosophy, situates his place in the currents of international law, and reflects on the broader role of memorials as discursive sites.

scholarly journals The End of Impunity? Global Law-Making and Atrocity Crimes / Den Kreislauf der Straflosigkeit durchbrechen: Internationales Strafrecht und Verbrechen gegen die Menschlichkeit

2014 ◽  
Vol 34 (1-2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Karstedt
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Political Concept ◽  
Law And Justice ◽  
Atrocity Crimes ◽  
Binding Power ◽  
Global Law

AbstractThere was nothing inevitable about the amazing development of international criminal law and justice institutions since the 1990s, and neither about the proliferation of international and domestic procedures to end im­punity for gross human rights violations and international crimes, in particular atrocity crimes. As socio-legal researchers engaged with the processes of global lawmaking in the arena of international criminal justice, thy found “recursive” cycles of lawmaking (Halliday 2009), which involved transnational and domestic politics and actors, and were driven by mechanisms resulting from structural characteristics of the global sphere, and the very nature of interna­tional law itself The article explores this development through the lens of three “constitutional moments ” and the diagnostic struggles and contestation of the legal and political concept of genocide. Finally it analyses the emerging power of international criminal law through the processes of commitment and compliance, deterrence and expressivism. In a surprising analogy to E.P. Thompson’s study of lawmaking in 18th centuy Britain, the self-binding power of law emerges as a decisive factor in international criminal lawmaking.

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