Amnesty, Revenge, and the Threat of Conflict Relapse

2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (6) ◽  
pp. 1095-1122
Author(s):  
Jacob Childers
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Political Factors ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
To Come ◽  
The Cost ◽  
Conflict Mitigation ◽  
Internal Armed Conflicts

Recent decades have witnessed an increase in internal armed conflicts, resulting in significant consequences for affected civilian populations. At the same time, there has been rapid growth in international criminal law and a trend towards accountability. Yet, attempts to mitigate violence may come at the cost of accountability, leading to the commonly referenced to peace-versus-justice dispute. Blanket amnesties are one tool for conflict mitigation, bargaining chips that allow actors to come to the negotiating table. This article examines issues related to blanket amnesties that are absent from the amnesty versus accountability debate. The basis of the analysis is not whether accountability reduces a victim’s desire for revenge. Instead, the analysis examines whether amnesty increases a victim’s desire for revenge, and when combined with other socio-political factors that contribute to conflict relapse, finds that this increased desire may escalate the potential for renewed violence in post-conflict regions.

scholarly journals Self-Referring to the International Criminal Court: A Continuation of War by Other Means

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 260-265 ◽  
Author(s):  
Parvathi Menon
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Sub Saharan ◽  
Internal Armed Conflicts

Weak sub-Saharan African states use international law and its institutions to legitimate their actions and delegitimate their internal enemies. In this essay, I argue that during internal armed conflicts, African states use international criminal law to redefine the conflict as international and thereby rebrand domestic political opponents as international criminals/enemies who are a threat to the entire community. This in turn sets the stage for invoking belligerent privileges under international humanitarian law (IHL).

Eco-Struggles

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Gillett
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Jus Post Bellum

This chapter examines the provisions of international criminal law applicable to serious environmental harm, particularly during non-international armed conflicts ('NIAC'). After describing incidents of serious environmental harm arising in armed conflicts, the analysis surveys the provisions of international criminal law applicable to environmental harm during NIACs, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression. It then examines the basis for extending to NIACs the protection against military attacks causing excessive environmental harm (set out in Art. 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute), which is currently only applicable in IACs. The examination of this possible amendment of the Rome Statute covers a broad range of instruments and laws forming part of international and national legal codes, all addressing grave environmental harm. Finally, the analysis turns to accountability for environmental harm as a facet of jus post bellum, emphasizing the interconnected nature of environmental harm and cycles of violence and atrocities.

The “Kouwenhoven” Case

2019 ◽  
Vol 181 ◽  
pp. 568-704
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Arms Embargo ◽  
Witness Statements

Economics, trade and finance — Economic sanctions — Liberia — UN Security Council Resolutions 1343 (2001) and 1408 (2002) — Implementation of arms embargo under Dutch law — Whether sanctions regime violatedInternational criminal law — Difference between perpetrator and accomplice liability — Complicity in war crimes — Requirement that defendant promoted or facilitated the commission of war crimes — Conditional intent — Whether defendant consciously accepted the probability that war crimes would be committed in connection with his material support — Risk of doing business with a government engaged in international criminal activityInternational criminal law — Evidence — Admissibility and weight of witness statements — Factors relevant to assessing witness statements obtained in post-conflict environment — Coercion of witnesses — Whether inconsistencies in witness statements requiring acquittalInternational criminal law — Circumstances excusing unlawful conduct — National emergency — Whether violations of arms embargo and laws and customs of war justified by right to self-defence under international lawJurisdiction — Universal jurisdiction — War crimes — Prosecution of a Dutch national for offences committed abroad — Whether conduct of investigation by Dutch authorities making prosecution inadmissible — Whether amnesty scheme in Liberia barrier to prosecution — No violation of fair trial rightsWar and armed conflict — Existence of armed conflict — Whether armed conflict international or internal — Limited gap between norms applicable to international versus non-international armed conflict — Whether violations of laws and customs of war giving rise to individual criminal liability under Dutch law — The law of the Netherlands

The Dangers of the Obvious but Often Disregarded Details in the International Criminal Law Demarcation Debate: Norm-Integration and the Triple-Thesis ‘Argument’

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 759-783
Author(s):  
Anja Matwijkiw
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Humanitarian Law ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
International Human Rights ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Post Conflict

When responses to international crimes are managed in terms of post-conflict justice, this event may end ‘the demarcation debate’ before it has begun, thereby rendering it superfluous among legal scholars. This is to say that the transition from theory to reality arguably has the effect of cancelling any sharp distinction between international criminal law, international human rights law and international humanitarian law, as well as extending international criminal justice into the moral territory. Certainly, this is a premise for the dual-aspect defense of those rights that help to explain the non-separation. However, to the extent that the defense discords with traditional assumptions, relevant aspects of pro-separation reasoning must be considered. These are accommodated under the triple-thesis whereby the unequal status of different (rights-)categories limit norm-integration. The author’s account of the competing programs shows a series of flaws in the case of the triple-thesis doctrine, amounting to a vicious circle ‘argument’.

Part V Procedural and Technological Challenges for the Investigation of TOC—Policing, Technological Aspects, Efficiency, Exchange of Information, Abuse of Power, and Tactics for Conducting Investigations, 22 Policing TOC—The National Perspective: Challenges, Strategies, Tactics

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brady Sheelagh
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Organised Crime ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Military Leaders ◽  
Abuse Of Power ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
National Perspective

At first sight, transnational organised crime (TOC) and international criminal law (ICL) are completely separate: the four ICL core crimes constitute the most heinous crimes, committed by political and military leaders of armed conflicts, whereas TOC as lower-level deviance being committed by private individuals falls short of that. This chapter takes a closer look at this relationship and discovers the lines between these two areas to be blurred: because, as international crimes, they have already been discussed in that context (e.g. while drafting the Rome Statute), and nowadays TOC can even amount to one of the four core crimes de lege lata in individual cases. Apart from that, TOC can also evolve into international crimes de lege ferenda once universal jurisdiction can be established. The chapter concludes that although TOC typically characterizes crime that is different to the four core ICL crimes, both areas approximate greatly in different ways.

Part 1 Introduction, 1 Criminal Responsibility in International Law

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
van Sliedregt Elies
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Modern Warfare

The reality of warfare has changed considerably over time. While most, if not all, armed conflicts were once fought between states, many are now fought within states. Particularly since the end of the Cold War the world has witnessed an outbreak of non-international armed conflicts, often of an ethnic nature. Since the laws of war are for the most part still premised on the concept of classic international armed conflict, it proved difficult to fit this law into ‘modern’ war crimes trials dealing with crimes committed during non-international armed conflicts. The criminal law process has therefore ‘updated’ the laws of war. The international criminal judge has brought the realities of modern warfare into line with the purpose of the laws of war (the prevention of unnecessary suffering and the enforcement of ‘fair play’). It is in war crimes law that international humanitarian law has been further developed. This chapter discusses the shift from war crimes law to international criminal law, the concept of state responsibility for individual liability for international crimes, and the nature and sources of international criminal law.

scholarly journals International criminal law: Between law and politics

2013 ◽  
Vol 65 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-67
Author(s):  
Dragan Jovasevic
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Humanitarian Law ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Law And Politics

Crimes against international law are committed by violating the rules of international humanitarian law during wars or armed conflicts. The perpetrators of these crimes are under the jurisdiction of international criminal courts (military or civil, permanent or ad hoc). The process of the commission of crimes against international law may comprise several different phases or stadiums. Moreover, such criminal offences rarely appear as the results of only one person?s activities. On the contrary, in numerous cases of these criminal offences, accomplice appears as a form of collective participation of several persons in the commission of one or more crimes against international law. All these facts represent grounds for the specific type of criminal responsibility of the perpetrators of crimes against international law. It is a object of regulation international criminal law about whose characteristics converse this article.

Part III The Right to Justice, C Restrictions on Rules of Law Justified By Action to Combat Impunity, Principle 24 Restrictions and Other Measures Relating to Amnesty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siatitsa Ilia Maria ◽  
Wierda Marieke
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
Transitions To Democracy ◽  
State Practice ◽  
The Right

Principle 24 deals with restrictions and other measures relating to amnesty. It requires that no amnesty should take precedence over the obligation of states to prosecute, try, and punish the perpetrators of serious crimes under international law. Through the impunity principles, the obligation to prosecute becomes intertwined with the prohibition of amnesties. An amnesty has long been considered a valuable tool to end conflicts or to ease transitions to democracy. In reality, however, state practice on amnesties remains inconsistent and the debate on amnesties continues to persist. After providing a contextual and historical background on Principle 24, this chapter discusses its theoretical framework, focusing on issues arising from the obligation to prosecute, the right to remedy, amnesties in international criminal law, and the right to refuse amnesty. It also examines how amnesties are used by states to end armed conflicts.

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