Africa and the International Criminal Court: (Re)constructing the Narrative

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-39
Author(s):  
Sarah P. Nimigan
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Relations ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Ivory Coast ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Institutional Development ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Normative Factors

Abstract African support for the International Criminal Court (icc) from its earliest stages of institutional development is often referenced in the international criminal justice literature with limited explanation. The aim of this article is to establish a holistic account of African support for an international criminal court in the pre-Rome period, during the Rome Diplomatic Conference, and after the establishment of the icc. This analysis uses rational choice and constructivist international relations (ir) theory to help explain levels of African commitment to the Rome Statute using Kenya and Ivory Coast as case studies. While the icc has been criticized on neocolonial bases, it is important to reconstruct the narrative to more accurately reflect African agency over the international criminal justice project, and the icc in particular. African resistance to the institutional behaviour of the icc is situated in its broader political context(s): domestically and internationally, using rational and normative factors to explain various levels of African commitment to the Rome Statute.

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.

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.

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.

India, the Rome Statute, and the International Criminal Court

2021 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 460-482
Author(s):  
Ian Hall ◽  
Renée Jeffery
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
New Delhi

Abstract Despite its long-standing rhetorical support for an international criminal justice regime, India continues to resist signing the 1998 Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court. This article explores the reasons for this reluctance. It observes that during the negotiations that led to the Rome Statute, India voiced multiple objections to the design of the ICC, to how it was to function, and to the crimes that it was to address. It argues that analyzing the negotiating strategy India employed during those talks allows us to discern which reasons mattered more to New Delhi and what accounts for India’s ongoing refusal to sign the Rome Statute.

Historical Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Schabas William A
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
World War ◽  
Second World

This chapter presents a historical introduction to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. International criminal justice first became an issue of consequence at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Between the wars, both intergovernmental and professional bodies developed sophisticated proposals for an international criminal court. These efforts, however, stalled with the advent of the Second World War and Cold War, regained traction in the 1990s, and culminated with the adoption of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on July 17, 1998. The Statute entered into force on July 1, 2002. Within a year, the Court was fully operational. In June 2005, its first arrest warrants were issued and, in January 2009, its first trial began.

On co-operation by states not party to the International Criminal Court

2006 ◽  
Vol 88 (861) ◽  
pp. 87-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhu Wenqi
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Public Attention ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Legal Consequences

Before the International Criminal Court (ICC) came into being, world public attention was focused on issues such as the significance of the Court's establishment, the importance of implementing international criminal justice and the time when the Rome Statute could enter into force. Once the Court was established, attention naturally turned to practical issues, such as whether it would be able to operate normally and perform its historic mission. The question of whether the ICC can operate effectively and perform its mission largely depends on the scope and degree of co-operation provided to it by states. This co-operation concerns not only states party to the ICC but also non-party states. This article offers to explore the obligation of non-party states to co-operate under international law, the prospects of their co-operation and the legal consequences of non-co-operation. The author suggests that beyond the general principle of the law of treaties according to which treaties are binding only on states parties, when viewed in the light of other general principles of international law, co-operation with the ICC is no longer voluntary in nature, but is instead obligatory in the sense of customary international law. Therefore, while a state may not have acceded to the ICC, it may still be subject to an obligation to co-operate with it in certain cases.

s.V Modalities, Ch.17 The Two Cultures of International Criminal Law

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
d’Aspremont Jean
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Two Cultures ◽  
The Two Cultures

This chapter looks more globally at the methodologies used by international criminal justice, particularly its tendency towards expansionism: including more actors, more situations, and more offences under its umbrella. It does more than simply tell the story of this expansion; this chapter also systematizes it in an important way. The chapter argues that international criminal justice’s expansionism has taken two important forms. The first wave involved a sources-based expansionism, characterized by the field’s desire to expand its influence by increasing the number of legal sources—treaty, custom, general principles—that could be sources of international criminal law. But when that process was largely complete, the passage of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court heralded a new, hermeneutic form of expansionism—this one based on interpretation rather than on adding new sources of law. While the hermeneutic expansion is less overt and less recognized than the first wave, its consequences are still dramatic.

The Criminal Procedure before the International Criminal Court: Main Features

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 103-123
Author(s):  
Federica Gioia ◽  
Mauro Politi
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Procedure ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
The Other ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Comprehensive Overview ◽  
The Creation

AbstractThis article provides a broad and comprehensive overview so as to confirm the starting assumption that the ICC proceedings do not entirely mirror either the adversarial or the inquisitorial system. Elements drawn and inspired from both traditions are to be found in the Rome Statute and the other institutive instruments of the Court which concur to create an innovative procedural framework aimed at preserving the fairest and most efficient features of both. It will be for the Court's practice to show whether this framework will be able to live up to the ambitious goal pursued by the Rome Conference: the creation of a model for international criminal justice which is not only fair and impartial (both requirements being necessary in order to achieve any form of justice), but is also efficient and expeditious.

An Attempt to Prosecute: The Muslim Brotherhood’s Communication to the International Criminal Court Relating to the Alleged Crimes in Egypt

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 733-762
Author(s):  
Hossam ElDeeb
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Muslim Brotherhood ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Political Debates ◽  
Legal Position ◽  
The Muslim Brotherhood

The article analyses a communication submitted by the Muslim Brotherhood group (mb) to the International Criminal Court (icc) relating to alleged crimes in Egypt. After the ousting of Morsi, hundreds of Morsi supporters were killed during the dispersal of two sit-in camps. The mb lawyers argued that the ousted, Morsi, is still the legitimate president of Egypt and hence can accept the Court’s jurisdiction pursuant to Article 12(3) of the Rome Statute. It is argued that such controversial communications submitted to the Court have serious implications other than the intended purpose of communications. The article briefly reviews the situation of Egypt’s criminal justice system in relation to the alleged crimes and the legal position of the mb, then analyses the scope of Article 12(3) before it critically argues that the communication submitted to the icc was for political gain and the Court should restrain itself from entering into political debates.

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