The African Union, the Security Council, and the International Criminal Court

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Chernor Jalloh
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Security Council ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
African Union ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
History Of

This chapter analyses the controversies surrounding the work of the African Union, the Security Council, and the International Criminal Court. It examines whether the legal justifications offered for the Security Council’s involvement in matters of international criminal justice, as administered by the ICC, match the emerging practice. The chapter reviews the drafting history of the Rome Statute to identify the initial benchmark against which to assess the Chapter VII referral and deferral resolutions and their impacts, if any, on the world’s only permanent international penal tribunal. The chapter situates the ICC within a new post-Cold War global paradigm that is not only concerned with ensuring the collective peace, which is the classical responsibility of the UN, but also ensures that international criminal justice is meted out to at least some of the leaders who foment the world’s worst atrocities.

scholarly journals Trial and (Potential) Error: Conflicting Visions on Reparations Within the ICC System

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alina Balta ◽  
Manon Bax ◽  
Rianne Letschert
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Conflict Situations ◽  
International Criminal Trials

Twenty years ago, the International Criminal Court (hereinafter ICC or the Court) was established holding the aim of placing victims at the heart of international criminal justice proceedings and delivering justice to them through, among others, reparations. Article 75 of the Rome Statute lays out the reparations regime, and, in practice, court-ordered reparations are a means of delivering such justice. Focusing on Court decisions on reparations, our analysis takes stock of all developments before the ICC and attempts to highlight the mismatch between characteristics inherent to the objectives of international criminal trials such as providing accountability and punishment of the accused and delivering justice for victims of mass crimes—the so-called procedural challenges. We also submit that the Court is facing conceptual challenges, related to an apparent misunderstanding of the various concepts at stake: reparations as such and the various modalities and channels of enforcing them. We conclude that although the ICC’s reparation regime may not be the best reparative response to provide justice to victims in conflict situations affected by mass victimization, we suggest that improving the ICC’s approach includes, at a minimum, tackling these challenges.

Rome’s Legacy: Negotiating the Reparations Mandate of the International Criminal Court

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (2) ◽  
pp. 351-377 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christoph Sperfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Fresh Perspective ◽  
Rules Of Procedure ◽  
Victim Reparations

This article examines the negotiations that led to the incorporation of reparations provisions into the legal framework of the International Criminal Court (icc). Building upon a review of the travaux préparatoires and interviews, it traces the actors and main debates during the lead-up to the Rome Conference and the drafting of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, explaining how and why reparations were included into the Rome Statute. In doing so, the article shows how the reparations mandate was produced at the intersection of a set of different agendas and actors. From this account, it identifies a number of key themes that were at the centre of the negotiations and often galvanised contestations among delegations or with ngos. The article concludes with a fresh perspective on the origin of victim reparations in the Rome Statute and its relevance for understanding many of today’s debates around reparations in international criminal justice.

India, the Rome Statute, and the International Criminal Court

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 460-482
Author(s):  
Ian Hall ◽  
Renée Jeffery
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
New Delhi

Abstract Despite its long-standing rhetorical support for an international criminal justice regime, India continues to resist signing the 1998 Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court. This article explores the reasons for this reluctance. It observes that during the negotiations that led to the Rome Statute, India voiced multiple objections to the design of the ICC, to how it was to function, and to the crimes that it was to address. It argues that analyzing the negotiating strategy India employed during those talks allows us to discern which reasons mattered more to New Delhi and what accounts for India’s ongoing refusal to sign the Rome Statute.

Substituting International Criminal Justice for an African Criminal Justice?

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantinos D Magliveras
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Added Value ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
African Union ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
The One

This article examines the reasons and the grounds behind the antiparathesis between the African Union and several of its Member States, on the one hand, and international criminal justice and the International Criminal Court (‘icc’), on the other hand. It also examines the consequences of and responses to this antiparathesis, including the creation of an International Criminal Law Section to the African Court of Justice and Human Rights and questions whether it offers any added value. The article concludes with suggesting the setting up of icc regional/circuit chambers, each dealing with a specific continent/region, as a means to restructure the icc, to make it more relevant to its users, namely the contracting parties to the Rome Statute, and to allay fears of politically motivated prosecutions.

“Rounding Up the Usual Suspects”: Exclusion, Selectivity, and Impunity in the Enforcement of International Criminal Justice and the African Union’s Emerging Resistance

2011 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ifeonu Eberechi
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Justice ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
African Union ◽  
The West ◽  
Regime Complex

AbstractDespite the overwhelming ratification of the statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) by African states, recent attempts to prosecute the perpetrators of egregious crimes in the region have come under a sustained opposition from its regional body, the African Union (AU). In fact, the blunt accusation is that international criminal justice has become an instrument of colonization. Within the context of the AU’s claim, this article engages the question of selective enforcement of international criminal accountability, ironically beginning with the Nuremberg trial. Without necessarily justifying the senseless perpetration of heinous crimes in Africa, this article argues that an international justice regime complex that is perceived to be skewed in favour of the West engenders a crisis of legitimacy and ultimately robs it of the much needed cooperation from the region.

scholarly journals Analysing the Future of International Criminal Justice in Africa: A Focus on the ICC

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 99-122
Author(s):  
Emily Ngolo
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
African Union ◽  
The Future ◽  
Enforcement Mechanisms

The International Criminal Court has generally a bad reputation in the African continent as a whole with hostile assertions by the African Union, that the court is nothing but a political tool for the powerful. The Court, plagued with numerous difficulties, has come under pressure to perform, with some doubting its viability. Created by the Rome Statute, and the parties therein governed by general treaty law, enforcement mechanisms of the court have been unsatisfactory at best and this has led to questions being asked as to its survival. There exists a pool of divergent views, in regard to the African Union and the International Criminal Court, in many of the crucial areas of international criminal justice. This paper seeks to find out just how true is the claim that the ICC is ‘dead’ is, and the implications of this in the future of the continent as regards international criminal justice. How important is it for us to preserve international criminal justice? Just how much of a role do states play in this revered area of law? Is its legal viability coming to an unfortunate premature end? What does this mean, then, for the victims of mass atrocities? This paper seeks to show an interplay of the role of states and politics in international criminal justice, and determine then, whether there exists any bright future for this area of law in Africa.

Africa and the International Criminal Court: (Re)constructing the Narrative

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Sarah P. Nimigan
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Ivory Coast ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Normative Factors

Abstract African support for the International Criminal Court (icc) from its earliest stages of institutional development is often referenced in the international criminal justice literature with limited explanation. The aim of this article is to establish a holistic account of African support for an international criminal court in the pre-Rome period, during the Rome Diplomatic Conference, and after the establishment of the icc. This analysis uses rational choice and constructivist international relations (ir) theory to help explain levels of African commitment to the Rome Statute using Kenya and Ivory Coast as case studies. While the icc has been criticized on neocolonial bases, it is important to reconstruct the narrative to more accurately reflect African agency over the international criminal justice project, and the icc in particular. African resistance to the institutional behaviour of the icc is situated in its broader political context(s): domestically and internationally, using rational and normative factors to explain various levels of African commitment to the Rome Statute.

The Habré Trial and the Malabo Protocol

2020 ◽  
pp. 231-240
Author(s):  
Ndeye Amy Ndiaye
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
African Union ◽  
Arrest Warrant ◽  
Progressive Development

This chapter situates the Extraordinary African Chambers (EAC) among wider Senegalese and African justice initiatives, examining the EAC as a re-appropriation of international criminal justice by African actors. It is obvious that the trial of Hissène Habré took place in the context of conflictual relations between Africa and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Since the arrest warrant issued for Omar Al Bashir, relations between the ICC and the states forming the African Union (AU) went steadily downhill, to such an extent that the AU came to envisage creating a criminal section within the institution. What people appear to be increasingly witnessing is the determination to regionalize African criminal justice, as may be concluded from the recent adoption of the Malabo Protocol and the call to withdraw from the ICC. The chapter then looks at the dynamics of an emerging regional criminal justice system across Africa. It is important to note that the innovative aspect of the Habré trial that has had the most positive impact was its demonstration of an African determination first to fight against impunity, and second to participate in the progressive development of international criminal justice.

scholarly journals Contemporary Challenges in Relation to the Prosecution of Senior State Officials before the International Criminal Court

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
pp. 76-100 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricia Hobbs
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
African Union ◽  
The Status ◽  
Additional Support

The International Criminal Court (icc) proceedings against Mr Ruto and Mr Kenyatta have been hindered by a series of arguments and counterarguments aiming either to avoid prosecution altogether or, at best, to cause significant delays. Moreover, the African Union (au) has repeatedly provided additional support to Kenya’s standpoint, furthering the interests of the region over international criminal justice. Following Kenya’s legitimate efforts to retain the jurisdiction over the crimes that took place in 2007–2008, the status of the defendants became an obstacle to effective prosecutions, giving rise to further areas of dispute, namely immunity, trial attendance and a general uncooperative attitude towards Prosecution requests, leaving the icc virtually unable to proceed. This article highlights the current problems encountered by the icc in relation to the Kenya situation, and argues that a stronger collaboration with the African Union (au) is vital for the icc effectiveness in that region.

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