scholarly journals From Nuremberg to the Hague and beyond: International criminal law in courts: Court of Bosnia And Herzegovina as an example

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 76-83 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manfred Dauster

International criminal law in courts will seize our interest forever. Adjudication of international criminal law violations have to happen in and by courts. They may be national courts; they also may be international (permanent or ad hoc) courts. Not to forget: It is also proposed to prosecute internationally active terrorists by international courts. It is worthwhile to take a short look at the historical development of such discussions. The so-called International (Legal) Community has discussed all forms of international criminal jurisdiction and will keep on discussing. In Bosnia and Herzegovina once the so-called internationals started an experiment with the (national) Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which in its nutshell was an administrative court that then was turned into a hybrid court predominantly for war crimes (and other serious felonies). As such a hybrid institution the Court was successful. International judges have left and the court became a purely national institution again. The short hybrid history of this court in a corner of the Western Balkans is worthwhile to be studied shortly.

Author(s):  
Gregory S. Gordon

If the hate speech–core crime relationship is plagued by internal incoherence with respect to incitement to genocide and instigation and institutional incompatibility as concerns persecution, the problem in reference to war crimes is quite different. In effect, as Chapter 7 demonstrates, the issue is an absence of law. Remarkably, given the inherently violent nature of the battlefield, with the exception of directly ordering grave breaches, international humanitarian law contains no hate speech provisions. The same is true of the relevant international criminal law instruments—neither the ad hoc tribunal statutes nor the Rome Statute contains hate speech provisions in reference to war crimes. Providing an overview of the modern history of hate speech on the battlefield, this chapter explores the deadly implications of this normative vortex and details the relevant legal instruments that evidence it.


Author(s):  
Amit KUMAR

Abstract The adoption of the Rome Statute is a significant moment for international criminal law. Before its formulation, the criminal law was governed by the sources mentioned in their statute or Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice [ICJ Statute]. Custom is one of the important sources within the ICJ Statute. The ad hoc tribunals applied custom and even formulated certain customs. The formulation of custom is considered as against the principle of legality. To avoid such criticism, the State Parties inserted Article 21 in the Rome Statute. The provision clarifies the law which the court can apply. The parties chose not to include custom explicitly. However, the wordings of the provision indicate that the custom is still a source for the court. Apart from the wording of Article 21, other provisions of the Statute give ample scope for the application of custom.


Author(s):  
Hanna Kuczyńska

This article deals with the model for prosecuting Nazi crimes committed in Poland in the light of the model presently used in international criminal law. It tries to answer the question: should the investigation of crimes of international law be handed over to transnational tribunals? Should they be hybrid tribunals involving a national factor, or completely supra-national tribunals like the International Criminal Court? Is it legitimate to transfer jurisdiction over these matters to national courts? The case of unpunished Nazi crimes in Poland may give a partial answer to this question. Certainly, various attempts made after World War II, including procedures brought before Polish courts, have contributed to understanding the function of international criminal law, and finding the answer to the question of the best model for prosecuting crimes of international law. At present, we also have the experience of international criminal tribunals, in particular the ICC, which is an efficient machine for prosecuting crimes of international law. Interesting conclusions can be drawn from its functioning that could improve the work of Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) prosecutors, and shed new light on the considerations regarding the prosecution of Nazi crimes in Poland after World War II.


2011 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
pp. 389-391 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELIES VAN SLIEDREGT

On 28 and 29 October 2011, a conference was held in The Hague on International Criminal Law (ICL) as a cultural and legal hybrid. The aim of the conference convenors was to facilitate an exchange of thoughts between legal scholars, practitioners, and social scientists on the nature of ICL and to discuss the role (legal) culture plays in international criminal justice. The recent discussion is dominated by the adversarial (common law)–inquisitorial (civil law) dichotomy and centres on the hybrid nature of the procedure in international criminal law. The debate focuses on how a fair and efficient trial can be safeguarded by observing the rights of the accused and other participants through an operational criminal procedure. Sometimes, this clash of legal systems has become an end in itself, resulting in a debate on which system is superior. At least in theory, however, modern international criminal procedural law seems to have overcome the adversarial–inquisitorial dichotomy, since it combines features of both common- and civil-law systems. This unique compromise structure poses a challenge to the practitioners who – although trained in and influenced by their respective national systems – have to apply the procedural norms at the international level and, in doing so, find an appropriate balance between adversarial and inquisitorial features. This is even more challenging since the single elements of the different legal traditions do not fit together seamlessly, leading to myriad, heated disagreements over how to combine them into a single, coherent, workable legal system.


2019 ◽  

The volume contains nine case studies on the recent history of transnational criminal law, having emerged from current international research projects. The papers cover cross-border political crime and security threats, extradition and expulsion, police cooperation and international expert discussions on social crime and torture. The focus is less on event-historical phenomena, but on transnational legal-political interactions of different actors. The contributions thus analyze the historical development of transnational criminal law as a form of temporally, spatially and legally limited criminal law and security regimes. As a result, the volume shows that the investigated transnationalization of criminal law in the 19th and 20th centuries did not lead to a cohesive normative order, thus offering legal-historical interpretations of current problems of international criminal law.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document