scholarly journals Resources, Navigation, and Punishment in the Criminal Courts

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Clair
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Sociological Theory ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Legal Authority ◽  
Court System ◽  
Use Of Self ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Relative Ease ◽  
Court Processing ◽  
Legal Expertise

This paper considers how criminal defendants make consequential decisions during court processing. Drawing on interviews and ethnographic observations among a racially and socio-economically diverse sample of Boston-area defendants and among legal officials, the author describes defendants’ differential styles of engagement with lawyers and the court. Whereas defendants who have reason to trust their lawyers often delegate legal authority to them in consequential moments and experience relative ease of court navigation as a result, defendants who have reason to mistrust their lawyers often withdraw from lawyers and seek to acquire their own legal expertise, such as knowledge about criminal law and procedure learned in their communities, in jail, and through observation. Defendants’ assertive use of self-acquired expertise, however, is discouraged by the court system, often drawing punitive responses from legal officials and constraining defendants’ legal choices. Thus, the cultural styles and resources that scholars have shown to benefit the privileged in mainstream institutions such as schools and workplaces have negative repercussions in the criminal courts, often to the detriment of less-advantaged defendants. The author discusses implications for research on criminal court disparities and sociological theory on culture, expertise, and navigation across a range of institutions.

scholarly journals Practice theory and change in international law: theorizing the development of legal meaning through the interpretive practices of international criminal courts

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nora Stappert
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
International Courts ◽  
Interpretive Practices ◽  
Legal Meaning

AbstractThe question of change has emerged as one of the main conceptual and empirical challenges for International Relations' practice turn. In the context of international law, such a challenge is brought into particularly stark relief due to the significant development of legal meaning through more informal, interpretive avenues, including through the judgments of international courts. This paper develops a framework for theorizing how interpretive legal practices generate normative content change in international law. Specifically, it uses the example of the development of international criminal law through the decisions of international criminal courts to analyze how legal interpretation can lead to normative change in practice. Drawing on interviews conducted with judges and legal officers at the International Criminal Court (ICC), the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL), I analyze how a community of legal practice centered around these courts was able to construct and alter legal meaning in international criminal law, and how such a potential for change was curbed by understandings of the interpretive process and the role of international courts dominant among international lawyers.

INTERNATIONAL CRIMES WITHIN THE JURISDICTION OF INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURTS AND TRIBUNALS

2017 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 71-84
Author(s):  
Magda Olesiuk-Okomska
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Far East ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Court System ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Military Tribunal ◽  
Massive Scale

Although in international law responsibility traditionally had belonged to states, along with involvement of individuals in conflicts between states and committing by them crimes on a massive scale, a need to criminalize such acts and to bring offenders guilty of the most serious violations of international law to justice - arose. Establishment of international criminal courts resulted from the need to fulfill internationally the idea of justice. Development of international criminal courts reflects differences in inter alia attitude towards ratione materiae of particular courts and tribunals. The purpose of this article is to present and discuss international crimes within the jurisdiction of international criminal courts and tribunals. A typology of international criminal courts was indicated and the most important courts and tribunals were presented in detail. The paper discusses subject jurisdiction of International Military Court in Nuremberg and International Military Tribunal for the Far East in Tokio, the first international courts established to bring war criminals to justice; as well as the subject jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, the only permanent court in international criminal court system, having universal jurisdiction. Four categories of the most serious crimes of international concern were considered, and doubts concerning subject jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, as well as its functioning in general, were signalized.

Retrospective Review of Information Technologies in the Criminal Code of Kazakhstan

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 1545
Author(s):  
Aibek T. AKHMETOV ◽  
Sabigul D. BEKISHEVA ◽  
Aleksandr V. SYRBU ◽  
Dariga B. KAINAZAROVA
Keyword(s):  
Retrospective Review ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Industrial Revolution ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Criminal Case ◽  
Court System ◽  
The People ◽  
Court Processing ◽  
Modern Technologies

It is currently impossible to imagine the improvement of some sphere without modern technologies. The president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev in the Presidential Message to the people underlines the need in the wide introduction of the elements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The objective of the paper is to analyze the retrospective review of the information technologies in the Criminal Code of Kazakhstan. As the method studying the research subject, we use the analysis of the criminal procedure legislation, digital programs, as well as the opinion of the scientists and specialists regarding the possibility of the introduction and use of the information technologies in the activities of the judicial authorities. A series of scientists prefer new progressive technologies in the criminal court processing, including the electronic criminal case. Besides, the programs dedicated to the development of the court system in Kazakhstan contain a series of prerequisites forcing the court reform to introduce the electronic base of the criminal case.

scholarly journals Due Process & the Theater of Racial Degradation: The Evolving Notion of Pretrial Punishment in the Criminal Courts

Daedalus ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 151 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-152
Author(s):  
Nicole Gonzalez Van Cleve
Keyword(s):  
Due Process ◽  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Cook County ◽  
Cultural Norms ◽  
Court System ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Court Records ◽  
Legal Professionals

Abstract Most theorists assume that the criminal courts are neutral arbiters of justice, protected by the Constitution, the rule of law, and court records. This essay challenges those assumptions and examines the courts as a place of punitive excess and the normalization of racial abuse and punishment. The essay explains the historic origins of these trends and examines how the categories of “hardened” and “marginal” defendants began to assume racialized meanings with the emergence of mass incarceration. This transformed the criminal courts into a type of public theater for racial degradation. These public performances or “racial degradation ceremonies” occur within the discretionary practices and cultural norms of mostly White courtroom professionals as they efficiently manage the disposition of cases in the everyday practice of law. I link these historical findings to a recent study of the largest unified criminal court system in the United States–Cook County, Chicago–and discuss court watching programs as an intervention for accountability and oversight of our courts and its legal professionals.

15. International criminal law

2021 ◽  
pp. 296-316
Author(s):  
Anders Henriksen
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Criminal Prosecution ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Recent Addition ◽  
Second World

This chapter looks at the purposes and principles of international criminal law. International criminal law seeks to ensure that perpetrators of certain heinous acts are criminally liable for their acts, either before national or international criminal courts or tribunals. It is a fairly recent addition to international law and it was not until after the end of the Second World War that it became accepted that international law authorizes the criminal prosecution of individual perpetrators of serious offences. The chapter begins by discussing the most important sources of international criminal law. It then examines the prosecution of international crimes before international criminal courts, including the conditions for prosecuting suspected international criminals before the International Criminal Court. It also discusses the national prosecution of international crimes and the obligation found in a number of conventions to criminalize and prosecute certain conduct.

15. International criminal law

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Henriksen
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Criminal Prosecution ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Recent Addition ◽  
Second World

This chapter looks at the purposes and principles of international criminal law. International criminal law seeks to ensure that perpetrators of certain heinous acts are criminally liable for their act, either before national or international criminal courts or tribunals. It is a fairly recent addition to international law and it was not until after the end of the Second World War that it became accepted that international law authorizes the criminal prosecution of individual perpetrators of serious offences. The chapter begins by discussing the most important sources of international criminal law. It then examines the prosecution of international crimes before international criminal courts, including the conditions for prosecuting suspected international criminals before the International Criminal Court. It also discusses the national prosecution of international crimes and the obligation found in a number of conventions to criminalize and prosecute certain conduct.

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.

Being a Disadvantaged Criminal Defendant: Mistrust and Resistance in Attorney-Client Interactions

Social Forces ◽  
2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Clair
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Court ◽  
Legal Knowledge ◽  
Court System ◽  
Defense Attorneys ◽  
Self Advocacy ◽  
Knowledge And Skills ◽  
Criminal Defendant ◽  
Relational Theories ◽  
Legal Expertise

Abstract Researchers have documented the power of legal officials to administer sanctions, from arrest to court surveillance and incarceration. How do those subject to punishment interact with officials and attempt to subvert their power? Drawing on interviews and ethnographic observations among 63 criminal defendants and 42 legal officials in the Boston-area court system, this article considers how socioeconomically and racially disadvantaged defendants interact with their defense attorneys, and with what consequences. Given racialized and classed constraints, many disadvantaged defendants mistrust their court-appointed lawyers. Their mistrust often results in withdrawal from their lawyers and active efforts to cultivate their own legal knowledge and skills. Defendants use their lay legal expertise to work around and resist the authority of their lawyers. Defense attorneys and judges respond with silencing and coercion, given the unwritten norms and rules of the court. These findings complicate existing accounts of disadvantaged defendants as passive actors and contribute to cultural sociological and relational theories of how people engage with professionals across institutional spaces. Unlike in mainstream institutions such as schools and hospitals where self-advocacy is rewarded in interactions, criminal court officials reject disadvantaged defendants’ attempts to advocate for themselves.

Sexual Violence and the Relevance of the Doctrine of Superior Responsibility in the Light of the Katanga Judgment at the International Criminal Court

2015 ◽  
Vol 84 (4) ◽  
pp. 533-579 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linnea Kortfält
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Violence ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Superior Responsibility

In this article, I set out to investigate the interplay between sexual violence and various linking theories in international criminal law. I will demonstrate some of the possibilities and shortcomings of various modes of liability available to the International Criminal Court with regard to cases involving sexual violence. In so doing it is necessary to thoroughly explain and discuss the potential reasoning of the Court in these matters. Since the case against Germain Katanga presents a perfect illustration of the distinction in application and analysis of the modes of liability with regard to sexual violence as opposed to other crimes, the reasoning provided in said judgment will be used as a springboard for such an analysis. Therefore the background to the case against Katanga will firstly be presented and the modes of liability as used in this particular case will subsequently be scrutinised. Considering the fact that Katanga was acquitted of sexual violence, this investigation will mostly demonstrate the deficiencies of these modes of liability and in the vacuum left after such an analysis, I will show the potential benefits of utilising the doctrine of superior responsibility in cases involving sexual violence. In my opinion, though fraught with complexities, this doctrine presents the perfect avenue to prosecute the higher echelons of organisations, i.e., the persons that international criminal courts and tribunals are intent on convicting, for sexual violence in particular. Thus, the aim of this article is to highlight the potential benefits of utilising broad charging strategies and more particularly, the importance of including the doctrine of superior responsibility, in sexual violence cases.

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