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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue

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Results for international criminal court

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Author: Dutton, Yvonne M.

Title: Bringing Pirates to Justice: A Case for Including Piracy Within the Jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court

Summary: The large and growing impunity gap for piracy can only be closed if the international community decides to act to bring pirates to justice. Piracy is a serious crime of international concern that is increasing in frequency and severity despite the unique ways in which the international community has been working together recently in an effort to repress and combat piracy. This Article suggests that pirates should be brought to justice using the extant International Criminal Court (ICC) by way of an optional protocol to include piracy within the ICC’s jurisdiction. Modern piracy is directed against victims from around the world, creates harms that are felt by the entire international community, and involves many of the same violent and cruel acts, such as murder, kidnapping, and hostage-taking, that are used to commit the crimes already within the ICC’s jurisdiction. Also, like the other crimes included within the court’s jurisdiction, piracy is a crime well-suited to the complementarity regime designed to help end impunity for serious crimes of concern to the international community. Nations are not prosecuting piracy suspects with any regularity, either because they do not have the laws, capacity, or resources to handle such prosecutions, or because they alone do not want to bear the various burdens associated with an expensive and difficult prosecution that affects numerous nations. The ICC could help end this culture of impunity regarding piracy offenses, and the burden of supporting the court’s adjudication of piracy cases could be shared by the international community more generally.

Details: Louisville, CO: One Earth Future Foundation, 2010. 34p.

Source: Internet Resource: Discussion Paper: Accessed February 2, 2011 at: http://www.oneearthfuture.org/siteadmin/images/files/file_52.pdf

Year: 2010

Country: International

URL: http://www.oneearthfuture.org/siteadmin/images/files/file_52.pdf

Shelf Number: 120658

Keywords:
International Criminal Court
Pirates/Piracy

Author: Dana, Shahram

Title: Blood Diamonds and Mass Atrocities: Cutting a New Paradigm from Coarse Jurisprudence

Summary: 150,000 human beings dead; 200,000 women raped; thousands of limbs amputated; countless children forced to kill their own parents, forced into sexual slavery, and forced into the battlefields; and 2.6 million persons displaced. These are just some of the facts and figures of the 10 year war in Sierra Leone. There is another number of significance: Nine. That is the number of individuals held criminally responsible for these atrocities. After more than 10 years and 300 million dollars, the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) convicted and sentenced just nine men. With the work of the court near complete, we are afforded an opportunity to evaluate its work and legacy. While writers have reviewed the work of international tribunals from a variety of perspectives, an examination of their sentencing legacy has been largely ignored or discounted. This article fills that lacuna in scholarship by advancing an innovative sentencing framework for international trials and articulating a new theory on atrocity sentencing that is both explanatory and instructive. My theory and framework both have general applicability to all international criminal tribunals, including the International Criminal Court (ICC). The article also contributes to the development of international law and legal scholarship in other ways. It is the first law review article to provide a comprehensive critique of all sentencing judgments of the SCSL. In addition to filling that gap, this article goes further to systematize the sentencing jurisprudence, identify key contributions, provide a normative assessment, link sentencing narratives to broader ones about the Sierra Leone conflict and atrocities, and advance an original theory and legal framework that breaks new ground on international sentencing and punishment. Consequentially, the article has immediate legal significance because, inter alia, the theory advanced herein speaks to punishing and sentencing Heads of State, an issue currently on appeal. Beyond its immediate impact, the article makes an enduring contribution by, inter alia, its legal and normative analysis that orders and illuminates ICL and develops a sentencing framework of general applicability. Parts II and III provide, respectively, a background to the Sierra Leona decade long war and a legal analysis of the cases and sentencing jurisprudence. Part IV offers an assessment of the SCSL's sentencing legacy by identifying its key contributions to the ICL sentencing law and linking its sentencing discourse to narratives about the conflict, just war, legitimacy, justice, and Sierra Leonean society. Part V develops a normative assessment of the court's judgments and sentencing practice. I argue that the judges at the SCSL have adopted punitive model for international criminal justice and that this reorientation is a positive development. I also criticize the court's failure to develop a sentencing framework capable of implementing the punitive model. Part VI contributes an original theory and sentencing framework to international law and ICL scholarship. Here, I also re-conceptualize concepts at the heart of ICL and its sentencing practice, such as gravity, modes of liability, and the role of the accused. My theory pulls together these three major outcome determinative sentence variables to effectuate their harmonized consideration for the purpose of sentence allocations and just distribution of punishment among actors responsible for atrocity crimes. l call this theory "enabler responsibility" or "enabling atrocity." I argue that enabler responsibility influences the sentence, especially of atrocity perpetrators at the very top of the hierarchy, even if unarticulated as a factor. The "enabler responsibility" theory closes the explanatory gap in sentencing judgments, including Charles Taylor's punishment.

Details: Unpublished paper, 2014. 78p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 28, 2014 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2244391

Year: 2014

Country: Sierra Leone

URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2244391

Shelf Number: 132198

Keywords:
Blood Diamonds
Crimes Against Humanity
International Criminal Court
Punishment
Sentencing
War Crimes

Author: Aksenova, Marina

Title: Values on the Move: The Colombian Sentencing Practice and the Principle of Complementarity Under the Rome Statute

Summary: This paper is about self-identification of the International Criminal Court ('ICC'). As the focus of international criminal justice shifts to national prosecutions, it is unclear to what extent the ICC will act as the enforcer of international norms on the ground. The paper discusses the principle of complementarity using the case study of Colombia. The ICC prosecution team has been conducting preliminary examinations in this country for over ten years and has yet to decide whether to move to the stage of formal investigations. In doing so, it must assess, among other things, whether reduced or suspended sentences rendered to senior perpetrators by the local judiciary are adequate in light of the gravity of the crimes committed during the continuing civil war. The issue of sentencing in Colombia illustrates the difficulties the Court may face in deciding on a state's willingness to undertake genuine prosecutions. The ICC has yet to determine its role in adjusting the values conceived internationally to the domestic terrain. In the case of Colombia, the matter is further complicated by the fact that the ICC's involvement may disturb the ongoing peace negotiations.

Details: Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen - iCourts - Centre of Excellence for International Courts, 2015.

Source: Internet Resource: iCourts Working Paper Series nr. 24 : Accessed February 1, 2016 at: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2605362

Year: 2015

Country: Colombia

URL: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2605362

Shelf Number: 137720

Keywords:
International Criminal Court
Rome Statute
Sentencing