Reparations and the Habré Trial in Context

2020 ◽  
pp. 340-350
Author(s):  
Christoph Sperfeldt
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Considerable Uncertainty ◽  
Victim Satisfaction ◽  
Victims Of Crime ◽  
Victim Participation

This chapter focuses on the particular problem of victim satisfaction, considering reparations. One of the interesting features of the Extraordinary African Chambers (EAC) is that its victim participation scheme allows individual victims of crime to submit claims for reparations. The promise that reparations can be delivered through international criminal justice has now been around for more than two decades, but the first practice has only emerged in the last few years. The adjudication of the first reparations claims before the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) has been arduous and revealed disagreement within and outside these courts over the nature, extent, and purpose of reparations in an international criminal justice framework. Considerable uncertainty surrounds whether these reparations schemes can live up to expectations placed upon them. It is in this context that an examination and a comparative discussion of the EAC's approach to reparations might provide some fruitful insights.

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.

Africa Against Global Justice? Stakes for Building a Political Sociology on the Future of International Criminal Justice

2020 ◽  
pp. 217-230
Author(s):  
Sara Dezalay
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Weak Field ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
African Continent ◽  
New Haven ◽  
Over Time

This chapter challenges current debates in global justice and the fight against impunity. Shifting the lens from the symbolism of global justice towards the structural conditions that have shaped international criminal justice as a field over time can help reposition the Habré success story not simply as an anomaly in a context of wider backlash against the International Criminal Court (ICC), but rather as a reflection of the structure of global justice as a weak field. The chapter then discusses the need to study systematically the evolution of legal markets on the African continent. In this, the project to institute a criminal chamber within the African Court of Justice and Human Rights has perhaps been too promptly dismissed as overly ambitious due to the lack of resources and state support within the African Union (AU). Interestingly, this project includes not only the crimes under the purview of the ICC, but also various other trans-border crimes such as trafficking, corruption, and the illicit exploitation of resources. The prominence taken in recent years by Africa as a new ‘mining frontier’—and with it, as a new haven for US and UK multinational corporate firms—underscores the timeliness of opening research paths on these ongoing transformations across the continent.

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.

Strengthening States’ and the International Community’s Responsibility to Protect Civilians: Revisiting the Prosecution of War Crimes Committed in Africa by the International Criminal Court (ICC)

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-115
Author(s):  
Seun Bamidele
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Responsibility To Protect ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
War Criminals ◽  
Intrastate War ◽  
New Thinking

AbstractThe silhouette of International Criminal Justice (ICJ) is fast changing across the globe. The change and transformation are connected to the criminalization of war, which has complicated the attraction of and engagement in the war for war-mongers. At least, the last few years had seen remarkable prosecution of war criminals in Africa. This is related to a relatively new thinking that informed the establishment of International Criminal Court (ICC) and global re-enforcement of war crime-related charges. Since the genocide in Rwanda, the establishment of the ICC has led to the prosecution of warlords. Also, the ICC has issued thirteen public warrants of arrest on war charges to actors and perpetrators in more than four African states. The case of President of Sudan, whose warrant of arrest had been issued regarding the crisis in Darfur, demonstrated that African leaders and war-mongers would be held responsible for their actions and atrocities they have committed. The lesson from the ICC is clear, war-mongers would be made to pay for their criminality. This article intends to examine the actions of the ICC on intra-state civil war crimes in Africa and assess whether ICC can act as deterrence on for intrastate war mongers in Africa.

Extent of Applicability of Human Rights Standards to Proceedings before the International Criminal Court: On Possible Reductive Factors

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 721-741 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christophe Deprez
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Present Article ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Specific Nature ◽  
Human Rights Standards

Today, it is not seriously challenged that human rights law applies to proceedings before the International Criminal Court. The exact boundaries of this statement, however, might be less clear. The present article argues that the extent of applicability of human rights law cannot be precisely described unless the specific nature of the Court and of international criminal justice in general is taken into consideration. More concretely, it will be demonstrated that the exact scope of applicability of human rights standards to the ICC setting can only be addressed by referring to inherent characteristics (both of the Court and of the international criminal system as a whole) that could possibly bear a reductive impact on that scope. It will be argued throughout the analysis that several of these specific features are indeed capable of reducing the level of protection, while on a closer look others do not display such influence.

Justice on Screen – A Study of Four Documentary Films on the International Criminal Court

2016 ◽  
Vol 29 (4) ◽  
pp. 1043-1060 ◽  
Author(s):  
WOUTER G. WERNER
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Documentary Films ◽  
Film Festivals ◽  
Humanitarian Organizations ◽  
Modes Of Representation ◽  
Artistic Interventions

AbstractIn the past ten years or so, several documentaries on international criminal justice have been produced, shown at film festivals, and used for advocacy and educational purposes. On some occasions, artists, humanitarian organizations, and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) have worked closely together in the production of documentary films. Documentaries have thus become important tools for education and the spread of imageries of international criminal justice. So far, however, international legal scholars have largely shied away from researching cinematic representations of their field. In this article, I seek to remedy this by focusing on a family of four recent influential documentaries related to the ICC: The Reckoning, The Court, Prosecutor, and Watchers of the Sky. All four use similar modes of representation, narration and promotion and basically communicate the same message about the Court. My article critically analyzes how such artistic interventions have helped create specific images, stories, and sentiments.

The Legitimacy of International Criminal Tribunals and the Current Prospects of International Criminal Justice

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 491-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
ANTONIO CASSESE
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
The Other ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Complex Concept ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals

AbstractHaving identified the differences between the concept of legality and the much more complex concept of legitimacy, the author scrutinizes the legality and the legitimacy of the existing international criminal tribunals. Their legality has been put in doubt only concerning the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL), but the criticisms have been or could be overcome. Assessing the legitimacy of these tribunals is instead a more difficult task. In fact, misgivings have been voiced essentially concerning the legitimacy of the ICTY and the STL, but not the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the other international criminal courts. The legitimacy of the STL in particular deserves to be discussed: even assuming that the STL initially lacked some forms of legitimacy, it could achieve it – or confirm it – through its ‘performance legitimacy’. The author then suggests what the realistic prospects for international criminal justice are. Convinced as he is that it is destined to flourish even more, he tries to identify the paths it is likely to take in future years.

Types of Injury in Inter-State Reparation Claims: A Guide for the International Criminal Court

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (02) ◽  
pp. 259-276
Author(s):  
Hirad Abtahi
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Public International Law ◽  
Inter State

Abstract In determining “the scope and extent of any damage, loss and injury to, or in respect of, victims” under article 75(1) of the International Criminal Court (“ICC”) Statute, the ICC will progressively lay the foundation of reparations in international criminal justice. In the process of establishing the typology of harms sustained by natural and—under some qualifications—legal persons, inter-state claims practice may prove to be of assistance to the judges in light of the particular circumstances of each case. In addition, such an exercise illuminates how the doctrinal methods adopted in public international law scholarship categorize and describe the harms that have given rise to reparation claims during both war and peacetime.

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.

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