scholarly journals Legal Mobilization and the Internationalization of Anticorruption Enforcement

Laws ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 89
Author(s):  
Mikkel Jarle Christensen
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Legal Mobilization ◽  
Critical Study ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Sociological Perspective ◽  
United Nations Convention ◽  
Atrocity Crimes ◽  
Ideological Context

This article contributes a critical study of efforts to internationalize the investigation and prosecution of corruption. The efforts to internationalize anticorruption enforcement are visible, for instance, in calls for an International Anticorruption Court (IACC) or an Anticorruption Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Corruption (APUNCAC). Inspired by a historical sociological perspective, this article investigates mobilizations around these initiatives, how mobilizers frame their engagement, and the ideological context in which they operate. In particular, the article zooms in on elites and how they push for states to internationalize the investigation and prosecution of corruption. This article situates the efforts of these elites in a larger historical context and compares the push to internationalize anticorruption enforcement to earlier legal mobilizations in the field of international criminal justice focused on atrocity crimes.

Coercion at the ICC

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Schack
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Coercive Power ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
International Courts ◽  
Domestic Literature ◽  
Interstate Conflicts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Atrocity Crimes

Abstract Throughout the history of international criminal justice, it has been the source of fierce debate whether institutions like the International Criminal Court (ICC) can prevent atrocity crimes from being committed by putting coercive judicial pressure on potential rule-breakers. Theories and insights drawn from the domestic literature on criminal justice have shaped much of this debate — based on the assumption that international criminal justice is essentially an internationalized version of domestic criminal justice (what I term the ‘domestic origin’ approach). The present article challenges this perspective by pointing out its shortcomings. It suggests that we should instead — or, at least, additionally — treat these international courts and tribunals as sui generis institutions imbedded in the world of international politics. From this perspective we can therefore draw on rationalist approaches to coercive power within the field of International Relations (IR) to analyse these institutions' coercive capacity. Unlike the domestic origin approach, this would allow researchers to draw on existing work on coercive power focusing on scenarios that play out in the kind of setting (major intra- or interstate conflicts) and involve the types of people (leaders of nations, armies and militias) which courts like the ICC were built to deal with.

scholarly journals The Future of the International Criminal Court. On Critique, Legalism and Strengthening the icc’s Legitimacy

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 591-614 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marieke de Hoon
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Criminal Trial ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
High Expectations ◽  
The World ◽  
The Future ◽  
Atrocity Crimes

While the International Criminal Court (icc) strives for justice for atrocity crimes throughout the world, increasingly, its legitimacy is undermined: powerful states refuse to join, African states prepare to leave, victims do not feel their needs for justice are met. This article argues that this is due to contradicting assumptions and too many objectives attached to the expectations of international criminal justice, which pull and push what the criminal trial is supposed to do in too many directions, undermining what it can do, raising too high expectations, and leading to disappointment. The article analyses the critique as rooted in a misunderstanding of what ‘justice’ is, what a criminal trial can do, and how inherently political international criminal justice is and only can be. It concludes with some observations on what this entails for strengthening the legitimacy of the icc by matching expectations to what it can and cannot do.

Is the Opposition Between Civil Law and Common Law Criminal Procedure the Lock or Key to International(ized) Tribunals’ Success?

2020 ◽  
pp. 282-294
Author(s):  
Leïla Bourguiba
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Courts ◽  
Paris Declaration ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Rules Of Procedure ◽  
Atrocity Crimes

This chapter offers a comparative consideration of the efficacy of civil versus common law in adjudicating atrocity crimes, using the example of the French war crimes unit prosecution practice. On 16 October 2017, representatives of international criminal courts and tribunals met in France at the French National School for the Judiciary. Their meeting resulted in the signing of a Declaration on the effectiveness of international criminal justice (Paris Declaration). In gathering professionals from international courts and tribunals where the need to comply with founding texts and specific procedures can challenge those who, by habit, comfort, or conviction, draw on their national practise to interpret and apply the rules of procedure, the question of common versus civil law practice was the implicit focus. The Paris Declaration was adopted at a time when disappointment towards the ‘efficiency’ of international(ized) tribunals and courts is high. They are considered too slow and too costly. In this context, it is not unusual to hear that international trials would be better managed and more efficient if they borrowed more elements of ‘civil law’ on their ‘common law’ foundation. The chapter then describes the main characteristics of each procedural system to help identify which procedural model has been favoured before international(ized) tribunals. It also asks whether national investigation and prosecution of core international crimes are more efficient.

scholarly journals The Creation and Protection of History through the Prism of International Criminal Justice in Al Mahdi

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 1-60
Author(s):  
Shea Elizabeth Esterling ◽  
Michael John-Hopkins
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Ad Hoc ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Cultural Property ◽  
Illustrative Case ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Atrocity Crimes ◽  
Legal Pragmatism ◽  
The Impact

This article examines the role that international criminal justice plays, firstly in creating history, and secondly in protecting history. With regards to the former function, history, in terms of historical truths and narratives are frequent casualties of war and so the first major thread of this discussion outlines the historiography of international criminal justice through the prism of the illustrative case of Al Mahdi before the International Criminal Court. In other words this paper aims to set out an overview of the approaches and strategies as well as the constraints within which international criminal justice develops historico-legal narratives when pursuing its primary goals of retribution and deterrence. With regards to the latter function, history, in terms of cultural heritage, may often be destroyed in order to annihilate the identity and even the existence of a people. Accordingly, the second major thread of this discussion is that when it comes to memorialising the significance of cultural property and the impact of its destruction for the benefit of our collective memory, Al Mahdi is an emblematic case. It represents a careful balance between legal pragmatism and legal principle in a context where the icc arguably has to manage greater budgetary and therefore strategic constraints than those faced by the ad hoc tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, which have been criticised as being too expensive and too expansive in responding to atrocity crimes.

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