International criminal justice and the unifying role of customary law

2016 ◽  
Vol 21 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 171-176
Author(s):  
Fausto Pocar
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
International Criminal Justice

scholarly journals Expressing what? The stigmatization of the defendant and the ICC’s institutional interests in the Ongwen case

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-23
Author(s):  
Liana Georgieva Minkova
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Northern Uganda ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Operation Risk ◽  
International Criminal Trials ◽  
Empirical Contribution ◽  
Selection Of

Abstract The potential of international criminal trials to express the wrongfulness of mass atrocities and instil norms of appropriate behaviour within communities has been subject to a lively theoretical debate. This article makes an important empirical contribution by examining the limitations to the expressivist aspiration of international criminal justice in the context of the message communicated by the International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor (ICC-OTP) in the Ongwen case. A detailed analysis of the selection of charges, modes of liability, and the overall presentation of the Prosecutor’s arguments at trial suggests that the ICC-OTP’s limited capabilities to apprehend suspects and its dependency on state co-operation risk the excessive stigmatization of the few defendants available for trial for the purpose of demonstrating the Court’s capability of prosecuting notorious criminals. As the only apprehended commander from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Dominic Ongwen has been presented by the ICC-OTP as the ‘cause’ of crimes committed in Northern Uganda without due regard for the degree of his alleged involvement in those crimes compared to other LRA commanders, the role of other actors in the conflict, or the significance of his own victimization as a child. Ongwen’s excessive stigmatization expressed the importance of the Ugandan investigation after a decade of showing no results. Yet, it also produced a simplistic narrative which failed to express the complexity of violence in Northern Uganda.

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.

scholarly journals The Role of International Criminal Justice in Fulfillment of the Tasks of the World Community - UN

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 87-96
Author(s):  
N I Kostenko
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Holistic Approach ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
World Community ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
The World

The article examines the role of international criminal justice in fulfilling the important tasks set by the world community in the 21st century to stabilize the criminal justice system, which should become a fundamental element of the rule of law structure; on the recognition of the central role of the criminal justice system in the development of international criminal justice. The work focuses on the need for a holistic approach to reforming the criminal justice system in order to improve the effectiveness of international criminal justice systems in the fight against crime.

Rough justice: Anatomy and interpretation in the exclusion of individual criminal liability in international criminal justice

2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 148-233
Author(s):  
Dimitris Liakopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Individual Criminal Responsibility

The present study aims to explore the relationship between the dogmatic conditions of the founding and the exclusion of international individual criminal responsibility. There are few cases in which an International Criminal Court has used previous international jurisprudence to establish a crime of conduct in international customary law, and in any case the importance of international judgments can not be underestimated as a general interpretative tool.

scholarly journals Optics, Aged Witnesses and Aged Defendants: Habré at the Extraordinary African Chambers

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-17
Author(s):  
Samuel Matsiko
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Theoretical Perspective ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Trial Process ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
Justice Systems

Abstract The prosecution of international crimes in domestic and international criminal justice systems may involve aged defendants. Such prosecutions often implicate aged witnesses as well. There is a dearth of literature not only on the expressive value and optics of punishing aged defendants but also on the role of aged witnesses in the trial process. The need to interrogate these optics and perceptions—be it from an empirical or a theoretical perspective—is not only necessary, it is also timely. This article assesses the prosecution of Chadian dictator Hissène Habré in 2015–2016 at the Extraordinary African Chambers. This trial not only concerned an aged defendant, but also over 90 witnesses, the majority of whom was aged. This article explores the dialectics between the optics of punishing aged defendants and the optics of aged witnesses at the Habré trial.

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.

The Role of Victims in the International Criminal Tribunals of the Second World War

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 245-270 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luke Moffett
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
World War ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
Second World

This article, drawing from historical research of the practice and judgements of the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals, analyses the role of victims within the founding international criminal tribunals of the Second World War. While some commentators have decried the absence of victims at Nuremberg and Tokyo, numerous victim-witnesses testified before these tribunals. However, the outcome of these tribunals has been disappointing to victims who still seek justice over sixty-five years later. This article considers the implications of the Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals not providing justice to victims and how this has impacted on their legacy. Although these tribunals are neglected in contemporary discussions of victim provisions in modern international criminal justice mechanisms, they can still provide some important lessons for modern international criminal justice mechanisms, such as the International Criminal Court, to learn from.

EDITORIAL: Between ‘Faith’ and ‘Facts’: By What Standards Should We Assess International Criminal Justice?

2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-282 ◽  
Author(s):  
CARSTEN STAHN
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
International Courts ◽  
Prodigal Son ◽  
Local Responses ◽  
Fact Finding ◽  
Legal Example

AbstractThe traditional vision that international courts and tribunals do ‘good’ or create a better world through law is increasingly under question. International criminal justice started largely as a ‘faith’-based project, but is increasingly criticized in light of its actual record and impact. This essay examines this journey and, in particular, the role of ‘faith’ and ‘fact’ in the treatment and assessment of international criminal courts, through four core themes (‘effectiveness’, ‘fairness’, ‘fact-finding’, and legacy’) addressed in André Gide's version of the parable of The Return of the Prodigal Son. It argues that, in its ‘homecoming’, international criminal justice would benefit from a greater degree of realism by openly accepting its limitations and embracing its expressivist function. It cautions at the same time against exclusively quantitative understandings of impact, arguing that the power of international courts and tribunals lies not so much in their quantitative record as in their role in setting a moral or legal example or shaping discourse. It concludes that a better match between ‘idealism’ and ‘realism’ requires greater attention to the interplay between ‘international’, ‘domestic’, and ‘local’ responses to conflict, as well as recognition of their legitimate differences.

Locating International Criminal Justice

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-37
Author(s):  
Kjersti Lohne
Keyword(s):  
Civil Society ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Conceptual Framework ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Sociology Of Punishment ◽  
Global And Local

The chapter introduces the research aims, conceptual framework, and methodology of the book. Departing from the story of the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a global civil society achievement, and previous research into how global and local civil society disagreed on their support for the ICC’s intervention into the conflict in northern Uganda (where the latter pointed to how it jeopardized ongoing peace talks) the chapter lays out the central aim of the book: to explore how the role of international human rights NGOs in international criminal justice yields empirical insight into the meaning of punishment at the global level of analysis. It identifies three separate yet interrelated sets of analytic questions guiding the inquiry: (i) What are the roles of NGOs in international criminal justice? (ii) What characterizes punishment ‘gone global’? and (iii) How is international criminal justice constituted by and of ‘the global’? The chapter situates the analysis through a brief background section on the development and institutions of international criminal justice, and contextualizes the ICC’s intervention in Uganda. It delineates the theoretical orientations for the study’s conceptual framework and contribution to a sociology of punishment for international criminal justice, drawing on a range of literatures across criminology, sociology, international relations, and international law. It then describes the organization of the book and its relation to the research strategy, before addressing the study’s methodology of a multi-sited network ethnography, its empirical data, and ethical considerations.

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