This book explores crucial themes in international criminal justice. It starts by answering the searching question: what is international criminal justice? The book then considers the role and impact of politics, history, psychology, terrorism, transitioning society, and even the idea of hope, and the relationship of these themes with how we understand international criminal justice. While addressing some crucial legal questions, International Criminal Justice goes further, drawing on a range of multi-disciplinary thinking.

Crimes of atrocity have profound and long-lasting effects on any society. The difference between triggering and preventing these tragic crimes often amounts to the choice between national potential preserved or destroyed. It is also important to recognise that they are not inevitable: the commission of these crimes requires a collective effort, an organisational context, and long planning and preparation. Thus, the idea of strengthening preventative action has taken on greater relevance, and is now encompassed in the emerging notion of 'responsibility to prevent'. International courts and tribunals contribute to this effort by ending impunity for past crimes. Focusing investigations and prosecution on the highest leadership maximises the impact of this contribution. The ICC has an additional preventative mandate which is fulfilled by its timely intervention in the form of preliminary examinations. Moreover, when situations of atrocity crimes are triggered, its complementarity regime incentivises states to stop violence and comply with their duties to investigate and prosecute, thus strengthening the rule of law at the national level. The new role granted to victims by the Rome Statute is key to the ICC ́s successful fulfilment of these functions. This new book of essays, which includes the author's unpublished inaugural lecture at Utrecht University, examines these issues and places particular emphasis on the additional preventative mandate of the ICC, the ICC complementarity regime, the new role granted to victims, and the prosecution of the highest leadership through the notion of indirect perpetration. 'The work of Professor Olasolo breaks new ground in the academic field of international criminal law, as an analysis of the system as a whole. I therefore wish to express my congratulations for this work.' From the Foreword by Luis Moreno Ocampo Prosecutor, International Criminal Court, The Hague, 27 April 2011 '[Professor Hector Olasolo's] compilation provides an enormous source of easy reference to students, academia and legal actors in the field of international law. A look at the titles compiled in this volume demonstrates the present challenges to international criminal justice'. From the Preliminary Reflections by Elizabeth Odio Benito Judge and Former Vice-President, International Criminal Court, The Hague, May 2011 'This collection, written by a brilliant and prolific scholar and practitioner of international criminal justice, is an insightful and important contribution to the existing literature...Each chapter in this collection is copiously footnoted and thoroughly researched, making it an important reference tool for scholars and practitioners in the field. Additionally and importantly, the chapters explore, without polemic, areas of controversy and dissent and thoughtfully and scrupulously set forth arguments for and against particular doctrinal choices.' From the Introduction by Leila Nadya Sadat Henry H Oberschelp Professor of Law and Director, Whitney R Harris World Law Institute, Washington University School of Law; Alexis de Tocqueville Distinguished Fulbright Chair, Université de Cergy-Pontoise, Paris, Spring 2011

Drawing on the critical legal tradition, the collection of international scholars gathered in this volume analyse the complicities and limitations of International Criminal Law. This area of law has recently experienced a significant surge in scholarship and public debate; individual criminal accountability is now firmly entrenched in both international law and the international consciousness as a necessary mechanism of responsibility. Critical Approaches to International Criminal Law: An Introduction shifts the debate towards that which has so far been missing from the mainstream discussion: the possible injustices, exclusions, and biases of International Criminal Law. This collection of essays is the first dedicated to the topic of critical approaches to international criminal law. It will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of international criminal law, international law, international legal theory, criminal law, and criminology.

This collection discusses appropriate methodologies for comparative research and applies this to the issue of trial transformation in the context of achieving justice in post-conflict societies. In developing arguments in relation to these problems, the authors use international sentencing and the question of victims' interests and expectations as a focus. The conclusions reached are wide-ranging and haighly significant in challenging existing conceptions for appreciating and giving effect to the justice demands of victims of war and social conflict. The themes developed demonstrate clearly how comparative contextual analysis facilitates our understanding of the legal and social contexts of international punishment and how this understanding can provide the basis for expanding the role of restorative international criminal justice within the context of international criminal trials.

International criminal justice is in transition. This book explores the growing internationalisation of criminal justice as a phenomenon of global governance. It provides students with a critical understanding of the international institutions for regulating transnational crime, the development of alternative justice processes across the globe, and international and supra-national co-operation criminal justice policies and practices. Key topics covered include: The historical development of International Criminal Justice institutions and traditions International Restorative Justice Victim communities and collaborative justice The relationship between crime and war International Human Rights The ‘War on Terror’ The globalisation of crime and control Developments in global governance, communitarian justice and accountability This text will familiarize students with the literature and debates surrounding international criminal justice and enable them to critically appreciate their theoretical and policy context. In doing so, it encourages students to assess the strengths and weaknesses of different approaches to the study of global justice and the analysis of comparative policy convergence and research. It will also help students to reflect on, and communicate in an informed and critical way theoretical accounts and empirical studies within the field of international criminal justice. This book will be essential reading for upper level undergraduates taking courses in criminal law, international relations and governance and postgraduates engaged in international criminal justice, international law, regulation and governance and human rights.

Historically Africa has suffered from numerous conflicts which are typically addressed through international criminal law mechanisms and courts, but the need for a broader approach is both evident and demanded. This book pulls together the debates originating from the conference “Criminal Justice and Accountability in Africa: National and Regional Developments” and highlights the different approaches and mechanisms used to date and what can be taken from them to advance justice and accountability across the African continent.

This book explores the intended and unintended impact of international criminal justice on the legitimacy of quasi-state entities (QSEs). In order to do so, the concept of ‘quasi-state entity’ is introduced to distinguish actors in statehood conflicts that aspire to statehood, and fulfil statehood functions to a greater or lesser degree, including the capacity and willingness to deploy armed force, but lack the status of sovereign statehood. This work explores the ability of QSEs to create and maintain legitimacy for their actions, institutions and statehood projects in various constituencies simultaneously. It looks at how legitimacy is a prerequisite for success of QSEs and, using critical legitimacy theory, assesses the legitimating narratives of QSEs and their statehood adversaries. The book links international criminal justice to statehood projects of QSEs and their success and legitimacy. It looks at the effects of international criminal justice on the ability to create and maintain legitimacy of QSEs, an approach that leads to new insights regarding international courts and tribunals as entities competing with states over statehood functions that increasingly have to take the legal implications of their actions into consideration. Most important, a close assessment of the legitimising narratives of QSEs, counter narratives, and the messages sent by international criminal justice with which QSEs have to deal, and their ability to overcome legitimacy crises, provides insight on QSEs and the complex processes of legitimation. This book will be of much interest to students of international criminal justice, political violence, security studies and IR.

This new volume provides the first thorough examination of the involvement of peace enforcement soldiers in the detention of indicted war criminals. The book firstly addresses why peace enforcement missions need to be involved in detaining indicted war criminals. This discussion includes an analysis of how the securing of justice and transitional justice is incorporated into the UN’s approach to peace-building. It also explores IFOR’s, SFOR’s and KFOR’s activities aimed at detaining indicted war criminals, before turning to an analysis of how the detaining of indicted war criminals is incorporated into peace enforcement doctrines, mandates and rules of engagement. The book then outlines the mechanisms that need to be established in order to enable peace enforcers to effectively arrest war criminals in the areas where they are deployed. It concludes with a discussion of the prospects for the involvement of peace enforcement soldiers in the detention of indicted war criminals, and of what lessons future peace enforcement missions can learn from the experience of IFOR, SFOR and KFOR.

Comparative and International Criminal Justice Systems: Policing, Judiciary, and Corrections, Third Edition examines the history, dynamics, structure, organization, and processes in the criminal justice systems in a number of selected countries. Designed for courses in comparative criminal justice systems, comparative criminology, and international