Acceptance of International Criminal Justice: A Review

As part of an interdisciplinary research project, the International Nuremberg Principles Academy has developed a methodology to critically assess the multiple dimensions of acceptance of international criminal justice in different situation countries. After a mapping of relevant literature on recent and current situation countries, the project has devised a research design for the analysis of pertinent levels and factors that can have an effect on actors’ acceptance (and non-acceptance) of institutions, mechanisms and outcomes of international criminal justice processes. The methodological approach described may be a useful guide for similar research projects.

International Journal of Law, Crime and Justice, 2019

The emergence of international criminal justice in general and of the modern international criminal courts in particular (the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia-ICTY, for Rwanda-ICTR and the permanent International Criminal Court-ICC) has been a matter of mixed reception by the academic and policy communities. After years of initial enthusiasm in the academic world and among international human rights campaigners about the creation and functioning of international criminal tribunals, the atmosphere has transformed into one of disappointment, blunt criticism and often open rejection. Over the past decade it has been difficult to find academic articles and books which are affirmative about the tribunals' trial record, about the fairness of their proceedings, or their contribution to the fight against impunity. Instead, a vast and devastating literature appears to have emerged, which can be divided into four different, critical strands. The first is critical about the very concept of international criminal justice, the globalisation of justice and the repercussions of top-down approaches to conflict resolution, the legalisation of politics and the influence of international organisations on community dynamics on the ground (Corrias and Gordon, 2015; Nagy, 2008; Schwöbel, 2014). The second type of literature, relatively nuanced, concentrates on the establishment of the tribunals and the international negotiations which had led to their creation. There, the creation of the tribunals is regarded as legitimate, although there is an ongoing discussion about the United Nations Security Council's (UNSC) right to establish them as subsidiary organs under Article 7 of the UN Charter. The debate only concerns the ICTY and the ICTR, because the ICC was created by a concert of states over whose territories and citizens it wields jurisdiction. Themain contentious issue with regard to the ICC is the role of the UNSC to transfer jurisdictions to the ICC over countries, which never ratified the ICC's Rome Statute (La Haye, 1999; Schiff, 2013). The third strand of literature focusses on the functioning of the tribunals, the way their chambers apply international criminal law, and the tribunals' statutory documents and evolved judicial practice, which expands the traditional notions of criminal re

This introduction by Susanne Buckley-Zistel is part of an edited volume by Susanne Buckley-Zistel/Friederike Mieth and Marjana Papa (eds.) entitled "After Nuremberg. Exploring Multiple Dimensions of the Acceptance of International Criminal Justice". It is based on a collaborative research project with research fellows from situation countries at the International Nuremberg Principles Academy from 2015-2017. http://www.nurembergacademy.org/resources/acceptance-online-platform/overview/

2016

International Journal of Transitional Justice, 2013

This article develops a framework for understanding what international criminal justice (ICJ) is, how it works and why it is arguably the most influential approach to transitional justice. More than just a mechanism in transitional justice's toolkit, ICJ is a 'field' in itself that has developed at the intersection of three other well-established global fields: interstate diplomacy, criminal justice and human rights advocacy. ICJ draws on the rules and practices of these fields, operating as a central site for the use and exchange of the delegated, legal, moral and expert authority active in them. It can thus mobilize authority in ways that make it more powerful at a global level than 'place-based' approaches to transitional justice. We illustrate this through a discussion of the victim of international crimes-a figure integral to the rules of ICJ and an increasing focus of the field, despite the fact that victims wield very little authority within the field.

2017

A study of the Acceptance of International Criminal Justice, from the legal perspective. More concretely the fragmented legal domestication of international justice as means of express or silent acceptance of international criminal justice.

Journal of International Criminal Justice, 2013

At the turn of the millennium, international criminal justice (ICJ) was in its honeymoon; today it seems that the honeymoon is over.What comes after the honeymoon? By now we have learned that ICJ cannot bypass politics and become an ordinary part of the rule of law. But normality was never a realistic aim for ICJ, which aims at the world's most abnormal crimes. The most important goal of ICJ is a radical one: transforming the world's political imagination to de-sanctify violence committed in the name of state or group, so that it comes to be regarded as mere crime. By this measure, the most important achievement of ICJ is positive complementarity, and the most reactionary is further strengthening of the doctrine of state immunity.

I n January , Fatou Bensouda, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC), announced the opening of the court's tenth and most recent country investigation, into alleged crimes perpetrated in Georgia during the brief  Russo-Georgian War. The crimes to be investigated may include murder, destroying enemy property, attacks on a peacekeeping mission , deportation, and ethnic persecution. Bensouda intends to make arrests, put suspects on trial, and, if they are found guilty, have them convicted and punished. Meanwhile, even as Bensouda prepared this newest case, the ICC was still prosecuting a suspect in the court's very first investigation, from , against Dominic Ongwen, a commander of the Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army. These two cases can thus serve as bookends to the ICC's short history, illustrating the long arc between initial investigations and eventual trials, and highlighting the complexity and contingency of international criminal justice. In this article we ask what—if anything—is the point of all this effort, and what can and should we expect from international criminal courts? After more than a decade of work, the accomplishments of the International Criminal Court are highly contested. The court has been accused of bias, of spoiling peace negotiations , of hindering successful transitions to democracy, and of being disconnected from the needs of conflict-affected populations.  We will not address these controversies here. Instead we focus on a more theoretical question: How can international trial and punishment constitute a suitable response to episodes of mass violence? The Statute of the ICC itself provides several indications. Its Preamble proclaims that " the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole must not go unpunished, " that it is " determined to put an end to Ethics & International Affairs, , no.  (), pp. –.