Strengthening The Validity Of International Criminal Tribunals

Strengthening the Validity of International Criminal Tribunals provides multi-disciplinary perspectives concerning ways in which international criminal tribunals can be made more valid and effective in a time of uncertainty for the field of international criminal justice.

In the last two decades there has been a meteoric rise of international criminal tribunals and courts and also a strengthening chorus of critics against them. Today it is hard to find strong defenders of international criminal tribunals and courts. This book attempts such a defense against an array of critics. It offers a nuanced defense, accepting many criticisms but arguing that the idea of international criminal tribunals can be defended as providing the fairest way to deal with mass atrocity crimes in a global arena. Fairness and moral legitimacy will be at the heart of this defense. The authors take up the economic and political arguments that have been powerfully expressed, as well as arguments about sovereignty, punishment, responsibility, and evidence; but in the end they show that these arguments do not defeat the idea of international criminal courts and tribunals.

The system of international criminal justice was established in response to gross human rights violations committed during World War II. Despite its development over the past seven decades, challenges and critiques remain unresolved or have subsequently emerged, particularly in the context of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Key issues include amnesties, immunities, controversial acquittals, non-cooperation, interpretative fragmentation, and cultural clashes. Criticism emerged as a reaction to the perception of impunity and the system’s underachievement. It is important to reflect on the extent to which such challenges are inherent to the system and whether they can be overcome. What is the state of international criminal justice today? What impact have these challenges had on the system’s integrity, currency, and credibility? To what extent can we prevent or remedy them? This volume brings together major contributions to the 8th AIDP Symposium for Young Penalists which was organised by the AIDP Young Penalists Committee and convened on 10 and 11 June 2021 in telematic mode, hosted by the Faculty of Law of Maastricht University.

International criminal justice relies on messages, speech acts, and performative practices in order to convey social meaning. Major criminal proceedings, such as Nuremberg, Tokyo, and other post-World War II trials have been branded as 'spectacles of didactic legality'. However, the expressive and communicative functions of law are often side-lined in institutional discourse and legal practice. This innovative work brings these functions centre-stage, developing the idea of justice as message and outlining the expressivist foundations of international criminal justice in a systematic way. Professor Carsten Stahn examines the origins of the expressivist theory in the sociology of law and the justification of punishment, its articulation in practice, and its broader role as method of international law. He shows that expression and communication is not only an inherent part of the punitive functions of international criminal justice, but is represented in a whole spectrum of practices: norm expression and diffusion, institutional actions, performative aspects of criminal procedures, and repair of harm. He argues that expressivism is not a classical justification of justice or punishment on its own, but rather a means to understand its aspirations and limitations, to explain how justice is produced and to ground punishment rationales. This book is an invitation to think beyond the confines of the legal discipline, and to engage with the multidisciplinary foundations and possibilities of the international criminal justice project.

Members of racial groups are protected under international law against genocide, persecution, and apartheid. But what is race – and why was this contentious term not discussed when drafting the Statute of the International Criminal Court? Although the law uses this term, is it legitimate to talk about race today, let alone convict anyone for committing a crime against a racial group? This book is the first comprehensive study of the concept of race in international criminal law. It explores the theoretical underpinnings for the crimes of genocide, apartheid, and persecution, and analyses all the relevant legal instruments, case law, and scholarship. It exposes how the international criminal tribunals have largely circumvented the topic of race, and how incoherent jurisprudence has resulted in inconsistent protection. The book provides important new interpretations of a problematic concept by subjecting it to a multifaceted and interdisciplinary analysis. The study argues that race in international criminal law should be constructed according to the perpetrator's perception of the victims’ ostensible racial otherness. The perpetrator’s imagination as manifested through his behaviour defines the victims’ racial group membership. It will be of interest to students and practitioners of international criminal law, as well as those studying genocide, apartheid, and race in domestic and international law.

In the past twenty years, international criminal law has become one of the main areas of international legal scholarship and practice. Most textbooks in the field describe the evolution of international criminal tribunals, the elements of the core international crimes, the applicable modes of liability and defences, and the role of states in prosecuting international crimes. The Oxford Handbook of International Criminal Law, however, takes a theoretically informed and refreshingly critical look at the most controversial issues in international criminal law, challenging prevailing practices, orthodoxies, and received wisdoms. Some of the contributions to the Handbook come from scholars within the field, but many come from outside of international criminal law, or indeed from outside law itself. The chapters are grounded in history, geography, philosophy, and international relations. The result is a Handbook that expands the discipline and should fundamentally alter how international criminal law is understood.

This book examines the parallel development and interaction between the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (RtoP), assessing this relationship over time and through case studies of Darfur, Libya, and Syria. The similarities and connections between the doctrine and the Court have been highlighted by UN bodies, the organs of the Court, and scholars, yet their relationship and common impact on international law have been less explored. This book fills this gap in presenting an overview of how the development of RtoP and the ICC affect various branches of international law. The research shows that while the doctrine and the Court experienced significant implementation problems in their first decades of life, they nonetheless have the potential to contribute to the historical evolution of international law in combining their values of promoting international peace and protecting human rights. This interdisciplinary study will be useful for scholars of international law and international relations. It will also be beneficial to persons working for international organisations and for civil society organisations focused on the activity of the ICC and on the development of RtoP.

The second edition of Historical Dictionary of Human Rights explores both the theory and the practice of international human rights with a focus on the norms and institutions that make up the “architecture” of the global human rights regime and the tools, processes and procedures through which such norms are realized and “enforced.” Particular attention is given to the contextual political and sociological factors that shape and constrain the operation and functioning of international human rights institutions and their state and non-state actors. This is done through a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 1.000 cross-referenced entries on terminology, conventions, treaties, intergovernmental organizations in the United Nations, and non-governmental organizations, as well as some of the pioneers and defenders. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about human rights.