scholarly journals Groups Defined by Gender and the Genocide Convention

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-75
Author(s):  
Filip Strandberg Hassellind

This article explores the crime of genocide in connectivity to groups defined by gender. Its aim is to investigate whether including groups defined by gender as a protected group in the Genocide Convention appears legally plausible. It begins by probing the historical origins of the concept of genocide. This exposition emanates into an analytical examination of the rationale of protecting human groups in international criminal law. Against this background, the article advocates an understanding of the crime of genocide as a rights-implementing institute. Subsequently, it employs an ejusdem generis analysis to assess whether groups defined by gender are coherent with the current canon of the protected groups, and if similar treatment thereby can be warranted. It then turns to examine other international law instruments, to expose that none of these are suitable proxies in dealing with gender-specific genocides. From this perspective, the article suggests that the content of the crime of genocide is not determinate, but rather emerges as a battlefield for hegemonic interests. Hence, it is easily discernible that the way in which the current construction of the protected groups in the Genocide Convention relates to gender groups reflects a deliberate choice. The article concludes with asserting that the choice represents a lacuna in international criminal law that in the end compromises the legitimacy of the crime of genocide, since the personal scope of the crime of genocide risks being in discord with current social and political trajectories.

Author(s):  
Maruf Billah

Bangladesh is recently prosecuting and punishing the perpetrators of crimes against humanity and genocide committed in the Liberation War of 1971 via a domestically operated International Crimes Tribunal Bangladesh (‘ICTB’). Though the Tribunal is preceded under the municipal law, it's material jurisdiction, i.e., crimes against humanity and genocide are originated from international criminal law. Therefore, this study purposes to examine several legal obligations of the ICTB in defining crimes against humanity and genocide as the core international crimes. Firstly, I scrutinize what is the legal status of international law (treaty and customary law) in Bangladesh's legal system? Secondly, by applying international criminal law standards, I focus on that is it one of the obligations of Bangladesh to apply international criminal law definitions of genocide under the treaty obligation as the contracting parties to Genocide Convention 1948, and the ICC Statute 1998? Thirdly, I also discuss whether Bangladesh has any obligation to apply customary international law definitions of crimes against humanity because crimes against humanity are considered as jus cogens offense in general international law, from which no derogation is permitted. Lastly, after a critical evaluation of domestic and international criminal law instruments, I conclude that Bangladesh certainly failed to fulfill its legal obligation to define international crimes under a treaty and customary laws, which is one of the fatal errors of the ICTB, a government-sponsored criminal tribunal, to secure criminal justice to the accused.


2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (04) ◽  
pp. 48-52
Author(s):  
Erkin Humbat Musayev Humbat Musayev ◽  

Key words: international law, international criminal law, genocide, war crimes, transnational crime


2012 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 847-855 ◽  
Author(s):  
ELIES VAN SLIEDREGT

Fragmentation of international law is a phenomenon that has been discussed ever since the ILC in 2000 decided to add to its programme of work the topic ‘Risks ensuing from the fragmentation of international law’. Koskenniemi, in a paper published in this journal, was one of the first to address fragmentation in legal literature. In 2006, he finalized a voluminous report on ‘Fragmentation of International Law’, providing for means and ways to cope with fragmentation.


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.


Author(s):  
Tiyanjana Maluwa

The chapter discusses the concepts of shared values and value-based norms. It examines two areas of international law that provide illustrative examples of contestation of value-based norms: the fight against impunity under international criminal law and the debates about the responsibility to protect. It argues that the African Union’s (AU) difference of view with the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the indictment of Omar Al-Bashir is not a rejection of the non-impunity norm, but of the context and sequencing of its application. As regards the right of intervention codified in the Constitutive Act of the AU, Africans states responded to the failure of the Security Council to invoke its existing normative powers in the Rwanda situation by establishing a treaty-based norm of intervention, the first time that a regional international instrument had ever done so. Thus, in both cases one cannot speak of a decline of international law.


2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 531-545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuela Melandri

AbstractThis article explores the relationship between state sovereignty and the enforcement of international criminal law under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. This doing, it attempts to map out the ambivalent and sometimes contradictory roles that different typologies sovereignty play in advancing or hindering the enforcement of international criminal law. After a brief survey of the literature on the debate over 'international law vs. state sovereignty', the paper focuses on one specific aspect of the newly established ICC: the conditions for case admissibility. The analysis will show that the relationship between state sovereignty and international criminal justice is a dynamic and complex one, which needs to be understood and contextualized within the current system of international relations.


1993 ◽  
Vol 27 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 288-296 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lech Gardocki

1. The principle of double criminality is traditionally bound with institutions of international criminal law. Double criminality is a requirement not only with extradition, but also with the transfer of criminal proceedings and with execution of foreign sentences. International criminal law employs a range of “double conditions”, the common denominator of which is the requirement that two legal systems share a certain set of values or legal prescriptions. In addition to double criminality, international law uses such terms as “double punishability”, the “double possibility of criminal proceedings” and the “double possibility of the execution of penal judgment”. Among these concepts, double criminality is the most important and universal condition applied in the basic institutions of international criminal law, such as extradition, the transfer of proceedings, and the execution of foreign penal judgments.


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