The Criminal Responsibility of Child Soldier Under International Criminal Law, Case Study: Northern Uganda and Democratic Republic of Congo ( DRC)

2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 15-29
Author(s):  
Jacques Kabano
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Child Soldier ◽  
Northern Uganda ◽  
Republic Of Congo

Taking Leaves out of the International Criminal Court Statute: The Direct Application of International Criminal Law by Military Courts in the Democratic Republic of Congo

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (2) ◽  
pp. 249-269 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dunia P Zongwe
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Treaties ◽  
Republic Of Congo ◽  
Municipal Law

Article 215 of the Constitution of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is the entry point for international law into the DRC legal complex. It provides that international treaties and agreements duly ratified by the state predominate over Acts of Parliament. Cases and studies involving the direct effect or self-executing norms of international law in domestic cases are rare in the DRC. The correct ways of applying Article 215 of the Constitution and international law in domestic cases have not yet been authoritatively settled. The basic dilemma is whether courts should read the provisions of relevant international treaties into disputed provisions of DRC laws or read the disputed provisions in the light of the relevant treaty provisions.Using as a case study the emerging practice of DRC military courts of directly applying international criminal law in domestic cases, the article argues that carelessly cutting and pasting formulations found in international treaties into the texts of applicable municipal laws infringes state sovereignty. Instead, the article proposes a strategy that would avoid unpleasant friction between international criminal law and municipal law, while encouraging cultural pluralism and the judicious intervention of international law in municipal law.

scholarly journals Third World Approaches to International Criminal Law

AJIL Unbound ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 109 ◽  
pp. 255-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Asad G. Kiyani
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Local Power ◽  
Power Structures ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Domestic Power

A pattern of affording impunity to local power brokers throughout Africa pervades the application of international criminal law (ICL) in Africa. The International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation into Uganda is a notorious but representative example, although similar analyses can be made of the Central African Republic, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Libya. In Uganda, only members of the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) have been indicted for international crimes, even though the United Nations, international human rights groups, and local NGOs have documented years of abuses perpetrated by government troops and local auxiliary units, often against the same populations victimized by the LRA. The ICC is thereby implicated in the power structures and political arrangements of a repressive state that both combats the LRA and often brutalizes the civilian populations of northern Uganda. Inserting itself into Uganda, the ICC becomes a partisan player in the endgame of a civil war that extends back over a generation, and is itself rooted in ethnic and tribal animosities cultivated through 19th century Euro-colonial benedictions of favor. Here, the ICC and the war it adjudicates become surprising bedfellows, repurposed by local elites for the consolidation of domestic power.

scholarly journals Virtue Ethics, Criminal Responsibility, and Dominic Ongwen

2019 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-504
Author(s):  
Renée Nicole Souris
Keyword(s):  
Moral Development ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Moral Perception ◽  
Child Soldier ◽  
Unlawful Conduct

In this article, I contribute to the debate between two philosophical traditions—the Kantian and the Aristotelian—on the requirements of criminal responsibility and the grounds for excuse by taking this debate to a new context: international criminal law. After laying out broadly Kantian and Aristotelian conceptions of criminal responsibility, I defend a quasi-Aristotelian conception, which affords a central role to moral development, and especially to the development of moral perception, for international criminal law. I show than an implication of this view is that persons who are substantially and non-culpably limited in their capacity for ordinary moral perception warrant an excuse for engaging in unlawful conduct. I identify a particular set of conditions that trigger this excuse, and then I systematically examine it as applied to the controversial case of former-child-soldier-turned leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, Dominic Ongwen, who is currently at trial at the International Criminal Court.

scholarly journals Sexual Slavery as a War Crime: A Reform Proposal

2021 ◽  
pp. 369
Author(s):  
Alessandro Storchi
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Present Formulation ◽  
Sexual Slavery ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
First Time

For the first time in the history of international criminal law, the ICC Elements of Crimes included a statutory definition of sexual slavery as a war crime and as a crime against humanity. Such definition is derived from, and in fact almost identical to, the definition of enslavement in the same text. In July 2019, that language for the first time was adopted and applied in the conviction of general Bosco Ntaganda, the first ever conviction for sexual slavery as a war crime and as a crime against humanity at the ICC, as part of the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This note argues for a reform in the language of the crime of sexual slavery as present in the ICC Elements of Crimes. The present formulation of such crime fails to correctly provide an independent standing for sexual slavery: that is, it does not adequately characterize the sexual nature of the crime as opposed to the broader category of enslavement. The note will focus on the drafting history that led to the present language, as well as on the problems arising from the Ntaganda decision. The note highlights the theoretical and practical limits of the present formulation, and it will address the academic critiques the language already received. It will then provide for an alternative wording for the first element of the crime, a wording that is more reflective of the purpose arising from the negotiating history at Rome and that emphasizes the sexual nature of the offense.

A case study of improved cook stoves in primate conservation from Democratic Republic of Congo

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sonya M. Kahlenberg ◽  
Tammie Bettinger ◽  
Honoré K. Masumbuko ◽  
Gracianne K. Basyanirya ◽  
Simisi M. Guy ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic Of Congo ◽  
Primate Conservation ◽  
Republic Of Congo ◽  
Cook Stoves

V Omission, in Particular Command Responsibility

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ambos Kai
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
General Principle ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Direct Result ◽  
Foundational Work ◽  
Legal Concepts ◽  
Individual Criminal Responsibility ◽  
General Explanation

This chapter continues the effort of this Volume to combine both comparative legal concepts with unique features of International Criminal Law. It is thus a direct result of the foundational work in Chapter II: International Criminal Law’s focus on individual criminal responsibility leads to an expressive purpose of punishments that again requires a criminalization of remote behavior by commanders and State leaders. This criminalization is based on the centuries old debate revolving around liability for omission. The chapter thus starts with a general explanation of the concept of omission vis-á-vis action. The author answers the question of whether a general omission liability exists in International Criminal Law affirmatively, recognizing a general principle of law, albeit with strict requirements. Drawing on the results from Chapter II, the author argues in favor of a criminalization of omission based on the prevention of harm and the protection of important legal goods/interests. The basis for this criminalization/liability is the respective person’s duty to act.

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