The Contribution of Female Judges to the Victim Jurisprudence of the International Criminal Court

Author(s):  
Juan-Pablo Pérez-León-Acevedo

This chapter argues that female judges at the International Criminal Court (ICC) have made significant meaningful contributions to the ICC jurisprudence on victim matters. They have interpreted and applied the ICC legal framework on victims, have fleshed out the contours and scope of normative provisions, and have faced substantive and procedural issues on victim-witness protection, victim participation and reparations at the ICC. This chapter uses international human rights as a standard to assess the legitimacy of ICC jurisprudence. The jurisprudence on defence rights has largely sought to strike a balance between defence and victim rights. However, some jurisprudence on victims (partially) construed by female judges prompts questions on whether respect for defence rights or other ICC goals may have been compromised. It is argued that all ICC judges, including female judges, should take distance from excessive pro-victim judicial activism to fully respect defence rights, and avoid victim frustration.

Author(s):  
A. B. Mezyaev

INTRODUCTION. The practice of modern international criminal courts and tribunals raises serious questions about the proper enforcement of the rights of the accused. Among these rights, the accused's right to compensation is highlighted. Compensation is given to the accused (regardless of the verdict) for violation of his procedural rights and fundamental human rights and compensation to the acquitted person.MATERIALS AND METHODS. The analysis of ensuring the human right to compensation in the event of an unjust sentence is carried out on the basis of international human rights treaties, treaties on the creation of international courts, including appeal to the travaux preparatoires of the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the practice of international criminal courts and tribunals, especially the ICC, as well as the International Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. The study was conducted using general scientific methods of cognition (in particular, analysis and synthesis), as well as comparative legal, historical legal and formal dogmatic methods. To achieve the corresponding conclusions, various methods of interpretation of the rule of law are used, in particular, grammatical, systematic, teleological, harmonic, etc.RESEARCH RESULTS. In the activities of international criminal courts and tribunals, a violation of the accused’s right to a hearing within a reasonable time is systemic, including due to the absence of any procedural deadlines on the one hand, and the absence of any rules (or their non-application) to restore the rights of the accused and punishment of the party who committed the violation of these rights. This situation poses serious problems of ensuring the rights of specific accused (including justified), but also the development of modern international criminal procedural law and international human rights law.DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS. National legislation and international human rights instruments provide for the right of an acquitted person to compensation. In international criminal courts, this issue, however, is addressed in different ways. The statutes of international criminal courts ad hoc created by the UN Security Council do not mention the right to compensation for an accused or acquitted person. At the same time, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda recognized that the absence of a reference to law in the Statute of the Tribunal does not mean that the persons concerned do not have the corresponding right. At the same time, this recognition did not have practical consequences. The Statute of the International Criminal Court recognizes the right to compensation, however, does so to a limited extent. Thus, in international criminal courts and tribunals, the provision of the human right to compensation (primarily compensation to an acquitted person) is performed at a lower level than that established in international human rights treaties.


Subject The United States, the International Criminal Court and international legal investigations. Significance The International Criminal Court (ICC) is being criticised for its paltry conviction record, alleged targeting of particular states and leaders and possibly existential crisis of being unable to prosecute many international criminals. On September 10, US National Security Advisor John Bolton questioned the ICC's legitimacy and applicability, threatening sanctions against its leadership if it pursued investigations against US military personnel for controversial incidents in Afghanistan or against US allies. Impacts African states may push the ICC to refocus away from eastern and southern Africa. Some leaders could use US criticisms of the ICC as cover to violate international human rights. Washington may increasingly seek bilateral protections against ICC involvement in US global activities. The ICC may recalibrate its approach to disputes, seeking other support for its activities.


2019 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 837-850
Author(s):  
Emma Irving

AbstractThe drafters of the Rome Statute sought to accord human rights a central place within the legal framework of the International Criminal Court (ICC). This was done not only through numerous provisions on the rights of the accused, victims, and witnesses, but also through the inclusion of the overarching Article 21(3) of the Rome Statute. Article 21(3) Rome Statute requires that the interpretation and application of all ICC law be consistent with internationally recognized human rights. While this provision has been employed on numerous occasions to bolster human rights protection in the ICC legal framework, it is not without its limits. In a series of decisions over the past few years, ICC judges have placed limits on the protections that can be read into the ICC legal framework on the basis of Article 21(3). Beyond stating that the ICC ‘is not a human rights court’, the decisions in question articulate no clear justification for the limitations imposed on Article 21(3). The present article analyses these decisions and identifies the underlying rationale for the Court’s approach: the principle of speciality. However, the picture is further complicated by the judges’ willingness to overlook the principle of speciality when particularly serious violations of human rights are involved. This leaves the precise contours of human rights protection in the ICC legal framework undefined.


2018 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 364-387
Author(s):  
Juan-Pablo Perez-Leon-Acevedo

Among international criminal tribunals (‘icts’), the International Criminal Court (‘icc’) for the first time introduced victim participation and reparations for victims. Against potential African withdrawals from the icc Statute, this article seeks to demonstrate the need to retain membership of the icc under victim-oriented considerations. Despite its deficits and limitations, the icc is arguably an important judicial forum for victims of mass atrocities committed in Africa for three arguments. First, human rights are invoked as a standard to examine the legitimacy of the decisions of the icc, African Union (‘au’), and African states. Second, international and African regional human rights law on victim rights binds African states. Third, since au regional criminal justice initiatives present important deficits and limitations in terms of victim rights, they are unfit to replace the icc.


2013 ◽  
Vol 38 (02) ◽  
pp. 512-537
Author(s):  
Joachim J. Savelsberg

This review essay on Aryeh Neier'sThe International Human Rights Movement:A History(Princeton University Press, 2012) discusses Neier's central themes: the origins and maturation of the movement and its effects, including the expansion of human rights and humanitarian law, enhanced criminal accountability for human rights crimes, and the appearance of criminal tribunals, culminating in the International Criminal Court. An overview is interspersed by imaginary conversations between Neier and scholars who speak to his themes, especially legal scholar Jenny Martinez, political scientists Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink, historians Devin Pendas and Tomaz Jardim, and sociologists John Hagan, Daniel Levy, Natan Sznaider, Joachim Savelsberg, and Ryan D. King. Linking a practitioner's account with scholarly analyses yields some benefits of “Pasteur's Quadrant.”


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 51-61
Author(s):  
Emily Rowe

The International Criminal Court’s (ICC) legitimacy, as an independent and unbiased international criminal court, has been brought into question, for all 30 official cases opened to this date are against African nationals. The ICC-African relationship is often framed in this excessively simplistic dichotomy: either the ICC is regarded as a Western neo-imperial colonial tool, or as a legal institutional champion of global human rights, rid of the political. Nevertheless, each obfuscates the complexity of this relationship by purporting either extreme.  Rather, it is the legal framework of the ICC that necessitates selectivity bias against nationals from developing countries, in particular, African states. The principle of complementarity and the United Nations Security Council’s (UNSC) referral power embedded in the ICC’s legal framework, allows for African nations to be disproportionately preliminarily examined, investigated, and then tried, while enabling warranted cases against nationals from developed states to circumvent such targeting. Therefore, the primary issue lies not in cases the ICC has opened, but in the cases it has not. 


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