Can We Be Friends? Offering an Amicus Curiae Brief on Sexual Violence to the EAC

2020 ◽  
pp. 134-141
Author(s):  
Kim Thuy Seelinger ◽  
Naomi Fenwick ◽  
Khaled Alrabe
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Amicus Curiae ◽  
Sexual Slavery ◽  
Sexual Crimes ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Life Sentence ◽  
Game Changer

This chapter details the preparation and submission of the amicus curiae brief on sexual violence to the Extraordinary African Chambers (EAC). The amicus curiae brief offered by over a dozen experts on the prosecution of sexual violence under international law may have been a game changer for the Hissène Habré trial, both in terms of its relevance as a mechanism of international criminal justice, as well as in highlighting the EAC's power to address crimes of sexual violence despite their omission from original charges. Among other international crimes, Habré had been convicted of rape and sexual slavery as a crime against humanity and as a form of torture. The affirmation of Habré's life sentence for massive sexual violence committed by his Documentation and Security Directorate (DDS) agents was hailed as a tremendous victory for international criminal justice and the rights of sexual violence survivors. However, the conviction for sexual crimes was not complete and its path was not linear.

Coherence in International Criminal Justice: A Victimological Perspective

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 339-368 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. Pemberton ◽  
R.M. Letschert ◽  
A.-M. de Brouwer ◽  
R.H. Haveman
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Government Agencies ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Large Numbers

This article develops a victimological perspective on international criminal justice, based on a review of the main victimological characteristics of international crimes: the complicity of government agencies, the large numbers of victims involved and the peculiar position of victims of international crimes, who at the time of the commission of the crimes are viewed as perpetrators and/or beyond the moral sphere, rather than as victims. Key elements of the framework concern the external coherence of the criminal justice reaction – the interlinking of criminal justice with other reparative efforts – as well as its internal coherence – the extent to which the procedures of international criminal justice are aligned with what it realistically can and should achieve. This latter aspect of coherence is used in an examination of victims’ rights in international criminal justice procedures.

‘Cosmopolitan Citizenship’, Territorial Borders, and Bringing Denationalized Terrorists to Justice

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Seet
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Territorial State ◽  
International Obligations ◽  
Cosmopolitan Citizenship ◽  
Globalized World

Abstract This article challenges scholarly claims that a post-national ‘cosmopolitan citizenship’ — an expanded and less territorially bounded belonging of ‘humanity’ — has been emerging in the international criminal justice context. In examining the contemporary denationalization of terrorists from the under-explored angle of criminal justice, this article argues that states’ territorial borders prevent denationalized terrorists — deemed enemies of ‘humanity’ — from being brought to justice. Some states strip citizenship from terrorists without holding them accountable for terrorist offences and international crimes, subsequently deporting them to — or leaving them stranded in — states which are, according to international criminal law, ‘unable’ or ‘unwilling’ to prosecute. As such, states’ territorial borders serve as a ‘shield’ which not only enable denationalized terrorists to avoid accountability for their terrorist offences and international crimes, but which also enable states to avoid their international obligations to bring terrorists to justice. This case study of denationalized terrorists not only demonstrates the enduring relevance of territoriality to international criminal justice but also broadly demonstrates how post-national ‘citizenship’ remains tied to the territorial state in a globalized world.

Victimological Imaginations

2019 ◽  
pp. 155-185
Author(s):  
Kjersti Lohne
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Moral Authority ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Global North ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender

The figure of the victim is the sine qua non of the fight against impunity for international crimes. Engaging the victimological imagination of international criminal justice, the chapter shows how victims are represented, and how justice for victims is imagined. The first part focuses on imaginations of ‘justice for victims’, and argues that the ICC represents a form of hybrid justice by incorporating ‘restorative’ and ‘transformative’ rationales for justice. Unlike ordinary courts, the ICC incorporates what can be thought of as both ‘punitive’ and ‘reparative’ arms. Part of the latter is the Rome Statute’s provisions for victims’ rights to participation and reparation. However, a closer look at the implementation of these processes reveal a conspicuous discrepancy between ideologies and realities. The second part of the chapter situates victims as a source of moral authority, and one that is claimed in representational practices by both human rights NGOs and international criminal justice generally. The chapter explores suffering as a type of ‘currency’, both on an individual level for victims’ advocates, as their source of ‘purpose’, and on a broader cultural level as the source of ‘global’ moral outcry. The chapter demonstrates how the victim is culturally represented through imaginations from the global North and becomes universalized as a symbol of humanity, of which the gendered and racialized victim of sexual and gender-based violence provides particularly powerful victim imagery. In this way, the image of the victim of international crimes is characterized by her essential ‘otherness’: it is humanity that suffers.

Crimes Against the Sovereign Order: Rethinking International Criminal Justice

2019 ◽  
Vol 113 (4) ◽  
pp. 727-771 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ryan Liss
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
The State ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Jurisdiction ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Fundamental Challenge ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe scope of international criminal jurisdiction poses a fundamental challenge for criminal law theory. Prevailing justifications for the state's authority to punish crime assume the existence of connections between the state and either the criminal or the crime that are not always present in the international criminal context. Recognizing this gap, this Article introduces a new theory of what distinguishes international crimes from domestic crimes and justifies the unusual scope of international criminal jurisdiction. As this Article explains, international crimes are unique in the way they undermine international society's structure as a system of sovereign states.

scholarly journals Gender Justice Beyond the Tribunals: From Criminal Accountability to Transformative Justice

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 227-233
Author(s):  
Kirsten Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Gender Justice ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Transformative Justice ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
Gender Based

What are the legacies for gender justice of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)? Darryl Robinson and Gillian MacNeil in this symposium describe the modernization of the law on sexual violence as a key legacy of the ad hoc international criminal tribunals. However, this characterization does not capture the wider challenges that gender based crimes have raised for the Tribunals, including other legacies of gendered hierarchiesand inequalities.How, then, is it possible to move past these issues to build international criminal justice so that it transforms, rather than reproduces, gendered injustices?

Punishing the Enemies of All Mankind

2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 971-993 ◽  
Author(s):  
ALETTE SMEULERS
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Collective Violence ◽  
Mass Violence ◽  
International Crimes

How do we and how should we punish perpetrators of international crimes such as war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide? Is it fair to hold individuals responsible for their role in manifestations of this type of collective violence? Do the punishments issued by international criminal institutions support the usual penological rationales? Do they actually attain their goals? Is the Westernized international criminal justice system the most appropriate means of dealing with mass violence, especially in non-Western countries which might have a different perception of justice? What are the alternatives? These are just some of the questions which Mark Drumbl addresses in this book.

Israel’s Unwillingness? The Follow-Up Investigations to the UN Gaza Conflict Report and International Criminal Justice

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 905-935 ◽  
Author(s):  
Valentina Azarov ◽  
Sharon Weill
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Standards ◽  
Access To Justice ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Complementarity Principle ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Recent Developments

Following Israel’s ‘Operation Cast Lead’, the UN called upon the Israeli and Palestinian authorities to conduct investigations and prosecutions of international crimes in accordance with international standards. The measures that the Israeli authorities undertook, when carefully examined, fall short of international standards. When examined under the lens of the admissibility criteria of the complementarity principle under Article 17 of the ICC Statute, this deficient practice emerges as part of a broader policy intended to shield perpetrators and maintain a climate of impunity for those committing international crimes. The need to find alternative avenues to provide victims with access to justice calls for an interrogation of the role of international criminal justice mechanisms, such as the ICC, in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. This article examines recent developments concerning Israel’s investigations under the criteria set out by the complementarity principle.

Victims' Participation in International Criminal Proceedings Beyond Mere Witnesses

2019 ◽  
pp. 153-196
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Sexual Violence ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Critical Evaluation ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Conflict Situations ◽  
Depth Analysis ◽  
Unique Nature

This chapter elaborates upon the framework set forth in the preceding chapter about the unique nature of sexual violence as a tactic of war and implications of this for the victims' needs to examine the limitations and challenges in addressing these needs within the context of the international criminal trials. The discussion offers a critical evaluation of the effectiveness of the growing victim-oriented approach in international criminal justice in responding to the needs of victims of conflict-related mass sexual violence. It presents an in-depth analysis of the procedural, legal, and practical aspects of the growing trend of victims' participation in international criminal justice proceedings, as currently being developed by the ICC, highlighting issues impeding its effectiveness in advancing effective redress for victims of sexual violence in conflict situations. This chapter argues that, while the growing victims' inclusion in the international criminal process remains a significant component of comprehensive victim-focused responses, it risks failing to consider the contextual dynamics surrounding the plight of victims of conflict-related sexual violence during and after conflicts, thereby falling short of providing effective responses to the needs of victims.

The Normative Basis for Victims' Rights and Their Status in the Criminal Justice Process

2019 ◽  
pp. 57-113
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Conflict Situations ◽  
Justice Process ◽  
Criminal Justice Process ◽  
Normative Basis

In this chapter, the study moves from the legal basis upon which these crimes can be prosecuted to victim-oriented approaches in the criminal justice system. It critically examines the emerging trend of victims-centred approach in international criminal justice system and especially how developments in some domestic systems have informed the growing trend to address the needs of victims in international criminal justice. The discussion in this chapter indicates that the relatively new idea of justice for victims of international crimes suggests that the international criminal justice process should attend to victims' needs, thereby contributing in the rebuilding of war-torn communities. The author argues that while the relatively new victim-centred approach to international crimes remains a significant component of comprehensive victim-focused responses, the complex realties of victims of sexual violence in conflict situations provide a unique range of challenges in addressing the needs of victims in the context of international criminal justice system.

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