Substituting International Criminal Justice for an African Criminal Justice?

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 291-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Konstantinos D Magliveras
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Added Value ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
African Union ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
The One

This article examines the reasons and the grounds behind the antiparathesis between the African Union and several of its Member States, on the one hand, and international criminal justice and the International Criminal Court (‘icc’), on the other hand. It also examines the consequences of and responses to this antiparathesis, including the creation of an International Criminal Law Section to the African Court of Justice and Human Rights and questions whether it offers any added value. The article concludes with suggesting the setting up of icc regional/circuit chambers, each dealing with a specific continent/region, as a means to restructure the icc, to make it more relevant to its users, namely the contracting parties to the Rome Statute, and to allay fears of politically motivated prosecutions.

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.

Corporations before International Criminal Courts: Implications for the International Criminal Justice Project

2016 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 221-240 ◽  
Author(s):  
JOANNA KYRIAKAKIS
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Global Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
African Union ◽  
Criminal Courts

AbstractThe debate over whether the International Criminal Court should have jurisdiction over corporations has persisted over the years, despite the failure of the legal persons proposals at Rome. For its part, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon determined that it has jurisdiction over corporations for the purpose of crimes against the administration of the Tribunal, albeit not for the substantive crimes over which it adjudicates. Most recently, the African Union has adopted a Protocol that, should it come into operation, would create a new international criminal law section of the African Court of Justice and Human and People's Rights with jurisdiction over corporations committing or complicit in serious crimes impacting Africa. In light of the enduring nature of the proposal that international criminal institutions should directly engage with the problem of commercial corporations implicated in atrocity, this article explores the possible implications for the international criminal justice project were its institutions empowered to address corporate defendants and prosecutors emboldened to pursue cases against them. Drawing on the expressive goals of international criminal justice and concepts of sociological legitimacy, as well as insights from Third World Approaches to International Law, the article suggests that corporate prosecutions, where appropriate, may have a redeeming effect upon the esteem in which some constituent audiences hold international criminal law, as a system of global justice. The article's thesis is then qualified by cautionary thoughts on the redemptive potential of corporate prosecutions.

Towards Afrotopia: The AU Withdrawal Strategy Document, the ICC, and the Possibility of Pluralistic Utopias

2018 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 481-513
Author(s):  
Dorothy Makaza
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
African Union ◽  
Global North ◽  
The Relationship

The International Criminal Court could be said to represent the largest utopian project in international criminal justice. Although African States were among the first to ratify the Rome Statute, the African Union Assembly’s adoption of a Withdrawal Strategy Document in January 2017 could have been an indication of a tipping point in the relationship between African States and the International Criminal Court. This article aims to show the irony of utopia amidst the global North/South divide by putting into question the feasibility, legitimacy, and equitability of the utopian project in international criminal law as well as to discuss the proposals within the Withdrawal Strategy Document while shedding light upon the varying contextual backgrounds on which those proposals were made. It challenges international criminal law conceptions of State (non-)compliance and explores the complexities of such classifications by revealing the politics of definition in international criminal law. Finally, the article suggests pluralising the field as a solution and introduces the concept of Afrotopia as part of the puzzle of pluralised utopias.

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.

scholarly journals Victims and Reparations in International Criminal Justice: African Initiatives

2019 ◽  
Vol 88 (4) ◽  
pp. 525-557
Author(s):  
Juan-Pablo Perez-Leon-Acevedo
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Court Of Justice ◽  
Or Practice

Two important African criminal justice initiatives, namely, the Extraordinary African Chambers (eac) and the International Criminal Law Section of the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights (acjhr-icls), illustrate the trend whereby victims can claim and receive reparations at international/hybrid criminal tribunals (icts). The International Criminal Court (icc) started this trend. This article will examine whether the eac and acjhr-icls can contribute to victims’ status as reparations claimants on substantive, procedural and institutional levels. The eac-Statute as applied in Habré and the acjhr-Statute constitute the primary sources of analysis as complemented by inter alia the law and/or practice of the icc, Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (eccc) and the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACtHPR). This article generally finds that the realisation of victims’ right to reparations at the eac and acjhr-icls depends on how normative and implementation deficits and challenges are handled.

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.

scholarly journals Constructing International Criminal Justice across Time and Space

2018 ◽  
Vol 18 (6) ◽  
pp. 958-987
Author(s):  
Emma Lauren Palmer
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Spatial Awareness ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
Time And Space ◽  
Temporal Aspect ◽  
Primary Measure

Scholars have suggested that ratifying international treaties and implementing them within national legal systems can lead to the acceptance and (eventually) internalisation of international norms. Likewise, failing to ratify might suggest that states reject such norms. Similarly, ratifying the Rome Statute can be promoted as the primary measure to give effect to the norms protected by international criminal law. This perspective of the diffusion of international criminal justice involves at least three characteristics. First, a temporal aspect, in that states are expected to progress from rejecting international criminal justice toward acceptance over time. Second, it reveals a spatial awareness, including by distinguishing between international and ‘local’ norms and actors. Third, this approach includes assumptions about the movement of ideas across both time and space, or directionality. This article challenges temporal, spatial, and directional assumptions about how states engage with international criminal justice with reference to experiences in Southeast Asia.

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.

scholarly journals Sudan, Resolution 1593, and International Criminal Justice

2006 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 195-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT CRYER
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Security Council ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International System ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Incomplete Reaction

The UN Security Council has recently referred the situation in Darfur, Sudan, to the International Criminal Court. This has been hailed as a breakthrough in international criminal justice. However, aspects of the referral resolution can be criticized from the point of view of their consistency with both the Rome Statute and the UN Charter. The limitations of the referral with respect to whom the Court may investigate also raise issues with respect to the rule of law. In addition, Sudan has accused the Security Council of acting in a neo-colonial fashion by referring the situation in Darfur to the Court. This article investigates these criticisms against the background of the international system in which international criminal law operates, and concludes that although the referral cannot be considered neo-colonial in nature, the referral can be criticized as selective and as an incomplete reaction to the crisis in Darfur. The referral remains, however, a positive step.

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.

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