This book investigates the use of duress as a defence in international criminal law, specifically in cases of child soldiers. The prosecution of children for international crimes often only focuses on whether children can and should be prosecuted under international law. However, it is rarely considered what would happen to these children at the trial stage. This work offers a nuanced approach towards international prosecution and considers how children could be implicated and defended in international courts. This study will be of interest to academics and practitioners working in international criminal law, transitional justice and children’s rights.

This book provides an original legal analysis of child soldiers recruited into armed groups or forces committing mass atrocities and/or genocide as the victims of the genocidal forcible transfer of children. Legal argument is made regarding the lack of criminal culpability of such child soldier 'recruits' for conflict-related international crimes and the inapplicability of currently recommended judicial and non-judicial accountability mechanisms in such cases. The book challenges various anthropological accounts of child soldiers' alleged 'tactical agency' to resist committing atrocity as members of armed groups or forces committing mass atrocity and/or genocide. Also provided are original interpretations of relevant international law including an interpretation of the Rome Statute age-based exclusion from prosecution of persons who were under 18 at the time of perpetrating the crime as substantive law setting an international standard for the humane treatment of child soldiers.

This book unlocks the look, sound, smell, taste, and feel of justice for massive human rights abuses. Twenty-nine expert authors examine the dynamics of the five human senses in how atrocity is perceived, remembered, and condemned. This book is chockful of images. It serves up remarkably diverse content. It treks around the globe: from Pacific war crimes trials in the aftermath of the Second World War to Holocaust proceedings in contemporary Germany, France, and Israel; from absurd show trials in Communist Czechoslovakia to international courtrooms in Arusha, Phnom Penh, and The Hague. Readers embark on a journey that transcends myriad dimensions, including photographic representations of grandfatherly old torturers in Argentina, narco-trafficking in Mexico, colonialisation in India, disinformation and misinformation pixelated in cyberspace, environmental degradation in Cambodia, militarism in Northern Ireland, and civil rights activism in Atlanta. Sights, Sounds, and Sensibilities of Atrocity Prosecutions reimagines what an atrocity means, reconsiders what drives the manufacture of law, and reboots the role of courtrooms and other mechanisms in the pursuit of justice. It unveils how law translates sensory experience into its procedures and institutions, and how humanistic inputs shape perceptions of right and wrong. This book thereby offers a refreshing primer on the underappreciated role of aesthetics, time, and emotion in the world of law. Drumbl and Fournet have done us all a great service in knitting together – in a single, powerfully imagined, volume – these essays about how we might experience the institutionalisation of judgment in atrocity trials. – Gerry Simpson, Professor of Public International Law, LSE Law School (London). Contributions to this volume offer a unique opportunity to delve into law’s hidden landscape using the primary reality of the five senses. – Marina Aksenova, Assistant Professor in Comparative and International Criminal Law, IE Law School (Madrid).

This provocative book explores the precarious conflict between the legal restrictions on governments’ power to take military action and the legal liability of soldiers to execute military orders. Adopting a multidisciplinary approach, this insightful book challenges the current distribution of trust between military decision-makers and agents.

This book examines the responsibility of judges of domestic courts following unconstitutional usurpation of power of government (coups d’état). It explores judges’ liability for failing to discharge their judicial duty independently and impartially, and the criminality of usurpers and their accomplices and collaborators for their violation of fundamental rights and freedoms or commission of crimes of international concern. Written by a highly regarded non-Western author, the book is coherent and meticulously researched, covering an approach to coups in an insightful and fascinating fashion. It includes a sophisticated and thorough analysis of the relevant comparative jurisprudence of domestic and international courts, with concrete examples of the best practices among decisions of domestic courts in countries that have experienced coups d’état. With an increasing global interest in the phenomenon of coups, democratic backsliding and the place and role of the judiciary as the only hope to rein in acts of unconstitutional usurpation of power, the book will be essential reading for members of the legal profession, those cherishing democracy as well as students and researchers in constitutional law, law and political science, public international law, international human rights law, international criminal law, regime changes, transitional justice and international organizations.

This volume is an inter-disciplinary scholarly resource bringing together contributions from writers, experienced academics and practitioners working in fields such as human rights, humanitarian law, public policy, psychology, cultural and peace studies, and earth jurisprudence. This collection of essays presents the most up to date knowledge and status of the field of transitional justice, and also highlights the emerging debates in this area, which are often overseen and underdeveloped in the literature. The volume provides a wide coverage of the arguments relating to controversial issues emanating from different regions of the world. The book is divided into four parts which groups different aspects of the problems and issues facing transitional justice as a field, and its processes and mechanisms more specifically. Part I concentrates on the traditional means and methods of dealing with past gross abuses of power and political violence. In this section, the authors also expand and often challenge the ways that these processes and mechanisms are conceptualised and introduced. Part II provides a forum for the contributors to share their first hand experiences of how traditional and customary mechanisms of achieving justice can be effectively utilised. Part III includes a collection of essays which challenges existing transitional justice models and provides new lenses to examine the formal and traditional processes and mechanisms. It aims to expose insufficiencies and some of the inherent practical and jurisprudential problems facing the field. Finally, Part IV, looks to the future by examining what remedies can be available today for abuses of rights of the future generations and those who have no standing to claim their rights, such as the environment.

This book examines and offers suggestions for how post-conflict practices should conceptualize and address harms committed by child soldiers for successful social reconstruction in the aftermath of mass atrocity. It defends the use of accountability and considers the agency of youth participants in violent conflict as responsible moral entities.

Recommended by The Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Dame Sara Thornton, in her 2020 report on “The Modern Slavery Act 2015 Statutory Defence: A call for evidence” "Rarely can the talent of so many practitioners be accessed in one convenient resource." Crimeline Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery Law and Practice, Second Edition provides guidance to those who deal directly or indirectly with those affected by modern slavery and trafficking, employ or manage a workforce, or have oversight of supply chains. It enables practitioners to deal with issues of law and procedure by providing an accessible, but comprehensive, summary of the points that need to be considered in order to plan a coherent litigation or compliance strategy. This Second Edition focuses on areas which have become of critical importance such as: - The modern slavery defence - Corporate accountability and modern slavery compliance statements - National Referral Mechanism for victims - How to identify victims of trafficking and modern slavery - How to elicit key information from victims of trafficking and modern slavery - Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings - The EU Anti-trafficking Directive This highly accessible guide draws on the expertise and experience of professionals in different disciplines, so that practitioners can receive guidance for their own practice and an understanding of the inter-relationship with other practice areas. Criminal, immigration, commercial and civil lawyers will find this an essential guide. It is also important for businesses when undertaking human rights due diligence assessments, as well as for those who work in law enforcement, the judiciary and academia.

This is the first volume of an authoritative three-volume treatise on international criminal law. The text provides comprehensive treatment of issues relevant to the foundations, general part of international criminal law, and general principles of international criminal justice.

This pioneering book explores the intersections of law and culture at the International Criminal Court (ICC), offering insights into how notions of culture affect the Court’s legal foundations, functioning and legitimacy, both in theory and in practice.