‘bluebeard on trial’: the experience of bathos

2021 ◽  
pp. 88-112
Author(s):  
Gerry Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
War Crimes Tribunals ◽  
The Relationship

It was a characteristic of early international criminal law that a search for precedents coexisted alongside obsessive declarations of ‘unprecedentedness’. The ‘unprecedented’ provided a moral and diplomatic basis for the invention of the field and its various novel doctrines. It is unprecedented outrage that engages—perhaps establishes the existence of—a ‘conscience of mankind’ so vital to the spirit behind the original war crimes tribunals. This chapter concerns itself, then, with the relationship between lawful precedents (often disappointing and ahistorical) and unprecedented, sublime violence, and the production of bathos in the exchange between the two.

The banality of liberal due process theory in international criminal law

2017 ◽  
Vol 60 (4) ◽  
pp. 5-34
Author(s):  
Tiphaine Dickson ◽  
Mark Hatfield
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Due Process ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Democratic Peace ◽  
War Crimes Trials ◽  
Judicial Proceedings ◽  
International War ◽  
War Crimes Tribunals

International war crimes trials are normative pursuits par excellence; they are understandably deeply emotional affairs, as a result of the horrors and injustices that lead to their establishment. Since these trials emerge from political decisions, the fundamental challenge in international criminal law has been to try to conduct judicial proceedings uncontaminated by passion and politics. Contemporary legalism, inspired by democratic peace theory, argues that liberal polities are more likely to establish international war crimes tribunals than illiberal polities, and posits that these liberal courts are more likely to be driven by a commitment to due process. I argue that reliance on legalism (as a political theory) is misplaced: not only have illiberal states participated in the establishment of war crimes courts, but legalist claims obscure the fact that many proceedings have been marred by significant due process deficiencies. The U.S.-as the archetypically liberal legalist state-has not accepted to be held to the norms and institutional constraints emerging from institutions of international criminal justice that it has shaped and promoted. I begin to develop an approach that I call Kantian realism, which holds that states should only establish norms and institutions that they would willingly decree upon themselves.

Eco-Struggles

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Gillett
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Environmental Harm ◽  
Jus Post Bellum

This chapter examines the provisions of international criminal law applicable to serious environmental harm, particularly during non-international armed conflicts ('NIAC'). After describing incidents of serious environmental harm arising in armed conflicts, the analysis surveys the provisions of international criminal law applicable to environmental harm during NIACs, including war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression. It then examines the basis for extending to NIACs the protection against military attacks causing excessive environmental harm (set out in Art. 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute), which is currently only applicable in IACs. The examination of this possible amendment of the Rome Statute covers a broad range of instruments and laws forming part of international and national legal codes, all addressing grave environmental harm. Finally, the analysis turns to accountability for environmental harm as a facet of jus post bellum, emphasizing the interconnected nature of environmental harm and cycles of violence and atrocities.

The “Kouwenhoven” Case

2019 ◽  
Vol 181 ◽  
pp. 568-704
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Liability ◽  
Criminal Activity ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Arms Embargo ◽  
Witness Statements

Economics, trade and finance — Economic sanctions — Liberia — UN Security Council Resolutions 1343 (2001) and 1408 (2002) — Implementation of arms embargo under Dutch law — Whether sanctions regime violatedInternational criminal law — Difference between perpetrator and accomplice liability — Complicity in war crimes — Requirement that defendant promoted or facilitated the commission of war crimes — Conditional intent — Whether defendant consciously accepted the probability that war crimes would be committed in connection with his material support — Risk of doing business with a government engaged in international criminal activityInternational criminal law — Evidence — Admissibility and weight of witness statements — Factors relevant to assessing witness statements obtained in post-conflict environment — Coercion of witnesses — Whether inconsistencies in witness statements requiring acquittalInternational criminal law — Circumstances excusing unlawful conduct — National emergency — Whether violations of arms embargo and laws and customs of war justified by right to self-defence under international lawJurisdiction — Universal jurisdiction — War crimes — Prosecution of a Dutch national for offences committed abroad — Whether conduct of investigation by Dutch authorities making prosecution inadmissible — Whether amnesty scheme in Liberia barrier to prosecution — No violation of fair trial rightsWar and armed conflict — Existence of armed conflict — Whether armed conflict international or internal — Limited gap between norms applicable to international versus non-international armed conflict — Whether violations of laws and customs of war giving rise to individual criminal liability under Dutch law — The law of the Netherlands

The Principle of Complementarity: A Reflection on Its Meaning, Origin and Types in International Criminal Law

2021 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 82-94
Author(s):  
Muyiwa Adigun
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
World War ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
The First World War ◽  
Domestic Courts ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
First World ◽  
Principle Of Complementarity

The principle of complementarity is one of the most important concepts in international criminal law as it defines the relationship between international criminal tribunals and domestic courts. Certain claims have been made in respect of this concept thus this study examines the correctness of the claims made. The study finds that the concept is claimed to have originated from the sciences and that its expression in international criminal law has taken a distinctive form different from that in the sciences, that it is traceable to the First World War and that there are at least about four categories of the concept. The study, however, argues that while the concept originated from the sciences, its expression in international criminal law is no different from that in the sciences, that it is traceable to the trial of Peter von Hagenbach in 1474 (the Breisach Trial) and that there are at least five categories of the concept. The study therefore concludes that the claims made are incorrect.

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW AND AR (AZERBAIJAN REPUBLIC) LEGISLATION GENOCIDE CRIME AND ITS COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS WITH OTHER INTERNATIONAL CRIMES

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (04) ◽  
pp. 48-52
Author(s):  
Erkin Humbat Musayev Humbat Musayev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
International Law ◽  
Key Words ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Transnational Crime ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Crimes

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

scholarly journals Nullum Crimen and International Criminal Law: The Relevance of the Foreseeability Test

2015 ◽  
Vol 84 (3) ◽  
pp. 515-531
Author(s):  
Harmen van der Wilt
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
European Court ◽  
Starting Point

This article traces the development of the foreseeability test in the context of the nullum crimen principle. While the European Court of Human Rights has introduced the ‘accessibility and foreseeability’ criteria long ago in the Sunday Times case, the Court has only recently started to apply this standard with respect to international crimes. In the Kononov case, judges of the European Court of Human Rights exhibited strongly divergent opinions on the question whether the punishment of alleged war crimes that had been committed in 1944 violated the nullum crimen principle. According to this author, the dissension of the judges demonstrates the lack of objective foreseeability, which should have served as a starting point for the assessment of the subjective foreseeability and a – potentially exculpating – mistake of law of the perpetrator. The Court should therefore have concluded that the nullum crimen principle had been violated.

The Relationship between State Sovereignty and the Enforcement of International Criminal Law under the Rome Statute (1998): A Complex Interplay

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 531-545 ◽  
Author(s):  
Manuela Melandri
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Current System ◽  
Specific Aspect ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
State Sovereignty ◽  
The Relationship

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.

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