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.

This book provides an account of how the responsibility to protect (R2P) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) were applied in Kenya. In the aftermath of the disputed presidential election on 27 December 2007, Kenya descended into its worst crisis since independence. The 2007-08 post-election crisis in Kenya was among the first situations in which there was an appeal to both the responsibility to protect and a responsibility to prosecute. Despite efforts to ensure compatibility between R2P and the ICC, the two were far from coherent in this case, as the measures designed to protect the population in Kenya undermined the efforts to prosecute perpetrators. This book will highlight how the African Union-sponsored mediation process effectively brought an end to eight weeks of bloodshed, while simultaneously entrenching those involved in orchestrating the violence. Having secured positions of power, politicians bearing responsibility for the violence set out to block prosecutions at both the domestic and international levels, eventually leading the cases against them to unravel. As this book will reveal, by utilising the machinery of the state as a shield against prosecution, the Government of Kenya reverted to an approach to sovereignty that both R2P and the ICC were specifically designed to counteract. This book will be of interest to students of the Responsibility to Protect, humanitarian intervention, African politics, war and conflict studies and IR/Security Studies in general.

This book will consider a rapidly emerging guiding general principle in international relations and, arguably, in international law: the Responsibility to Protect. This principle is a solution proposed to a key preoccupation in both international relations and international law scholarship: how the international community is to respond to mass atrocities within sovereign States. There are three facets to this responsibility; the responsibility to prevent; the responsibility to react, and the responsibility to rebuild. This doctrine will be analysed in light of the parallel development of customary and treaty international legal obligations imposing responsibilities on sovereign states to the international community in key international law fields such as international human rights law, international criminal law and international environmental law. These new developments demand academic study and this book fills this lacuna by rigorously considering all of these developments as part of a trend towards assumption of international responsibility. This must include the responsibility on the part of all states to respond to threats of genocide, crimes against humanity, ethnic cleansings and large-scale war crimes. The discussion surrounding aggravated state responsibility is also explored, with the author concluding that this emerging norm within international law is closely related to the responsibility to protect in its imposition of an international responsibility to act in response to an international wrong. This book will be of great interest to scholars on international law, the law of armed conflict, security studies and IR in general.

Principles of International Criminal Law is one of the most influential textbooks in the field of international criminal justice. This fourth edition builds on the highly-successful work of the previous editions, setting out the general principles governing international crimes as well as the fundamentals of both substantive and procedural international criminal law. It provides a detailed understanding of the sources and evolution of international criminal law, demonstrating how it has developed, and how its application has changed. The book assesses in detail the four key international crimes as defined by the statute of the International Criminal Court: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and the crime of aggression. The new edition revises and updates the work with developments in international criminal justice since 2014. It includes substantial new material on critical perspectives on international criminal justice, the fragmentation of international criminal law, new war crimes of prohibited means of warfare, and the prosecution of crimes committed in Syria and Northern Iraq.The book retains its highly-acclaimed systematic approach and consistent methodology, making it essential reading for both students and scholars of international criminal law, as well as practitioners and judges working in the field.

Grappling specifically with the norm of sovereignty as responsibility, the book seeks to advance a critical constructivist understanding of norm development in international society, as opposed to the conventional – or liberal – constructivist (mis)understanding that still dominates the debate. Against this backdrop, the book delves into the institutionalization of sovereignty as responsibility within the lived practice of the International Criminal Court (ICC). More to the point, the proposed exploration intends to revive questions about the power-laden nature of the normative fabric of international society, its dis-symmetries, and its outright hierarchies, in order to devise an original framework to operationalize research on how – institutional – practice impinges on norm development. To this end, the book resorts to an original creole vocabulary, which combines the contributions of post-positivist constructivist scholars with the legacy of key post-modernist thinkers such as Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida, as well as critical approaches to International (Criminal) Law and Post-Colonial Studies. The book will appeal to scholars of international relations and international law, in addition to critical scholars more broadly, as well as to practitioners in the fields of human rights and international justice interested in normative theory and the implementation and contestation of international social norms.

This book presents the views of various international law and human rights experts on the contested meaning, scope of application, value and viability of R2P; the principle of the Responsibility to Protect . R2P refers to the notion that the international community has a legal responsibility to protect civilians against the potential or ongoing occurrence of the mass atrocity crimes of genocide, large scale war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. R2P allows for intervention where the individual State is unable or unwilling to so protect its people or is in fact a perpetrator. The book addresses also the controversial issue of whether intervention by States implementing R2P with or without the endorsement of the United Nations Security Council constitutes a State act of aggression or instead is legally justified and not an infringement on the offending State’s sovereign jurisdiction. The adverse impact on global peace and security of the failure to protect civilians from mass atrocity crimes has put in stark relief the need to address anew the principle of ‘responsibility to protect’ and the feasibility and wisdom of its application and this book is a significant contribution to that effort. This book was originally published as a special issue of the International Journal of Human Rights.

This book explores the dynamics and trajectories of change in international politics through an English School analysis of primary institutions including international law, sovereignty and diplomacy, with particular reference to the creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The study argues that it serves as an important indicator and model for redefining international politics, particularly through its impact upon three major institutions as prescribed by the English School: international law, sovereignty and diplomacy. The author explores three major areas: the ICC’s contribution to the consolidation of the individual as a subject of the international law; the significance of the Court and its jurisdiction in terms of the state sovereignty; and the strong and determinative role of non-state actors active on global level during the diplomatic process upheld for the making of the norms and rules during the creation of the ICC. These three fields of change, point out to the redefinition and reconstruction of international politics, heralding a solidarist vision of international society. The book will be of particular interest to researchers in the field of the IR, as well as graduate students interested in IR theory, international law, and international organizations.

As the RtoP moves from norm to operationalization, greater analysis of action to halt crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and ethnic cleansing is needed. This uncovers opportunities and challenges associated with third pillar interventions by looking at legal, economic, political, military and alternative interventions in third-countries.

The International Criminal Court was established in 2002 to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide. At its genesis the ICC was expected to help prevent atrocities from arising or escalating by ending the impunity of leaders and administering punishment for the commission of international crimes. More than a decade later, the ICC’s ability to achieve these broad aims has been questioned, as the ICC has reached only two guilty verdicts. In addition, some of the world’s major powers, including the United States, Russia and China, are not members of the ICC. These issues underscore a gap between the ideals of prevention and deterrence and the reality of the ICC’s functioning. This book explores the gaps, schisms, and contradictions that are increasingly defining the International Criminal Court, moving beyond existing legal, international relations, and political accounts of the ICC to analyse the Court from a criminological standpoint. By exploring the way different actors engage with the ICC and viewing the Court through the framework of late modernity, the book considers how gaps between rhetoric and reality arise in the work of the ICC. Contrary to much existing research, the book examines how such gaps and tensions can be productive as they enable the Court to navigate a complex, international environment driven by geopolitics. The International Criminal Court and Global Social Control will be of interest to academics, researchers, and advanced practitioners in international law, international relations, criminology, and political science. It will also be of use in upper-level undergraduate and postgraduate courses related to international criminal justice and globalization.

The purpose of this book is to critically examine the activities of the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the eve of its 20th year of existence, with a focus on its relationship to the Rohingya crisis. This book is unique in that it identifies the potential and contemporary challenges of the ICC while focusing on the relationship between the Rohingya issue and the ICC. The relationship between the Rohingya crisis and the ICC is an issue that is fraught with contemporary challenges and worth dealing with. The relationship between the ICC and non-State Parties and the relationship between the ICC and high government officials are the examples of these challenges. Its novelty is to address the relationship between the Rohingya crisis and the ICC by staying current of information. The human rights situation of the Rohingya is of high international concern. With a case pending at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), not only individual criminal responsibility but also State responsibility may be sought for the most serious human rights violations. The Rohingya crisis itself is of great international concern, and it is expected that the issues will be discussed from the perspective of international human rights law, international humanitarian law, and international criminal law. Therefore, the structure of this book is as follows. First, it explains the history of the Rohingya crisis. Secondly, it touches on the relationship between the Rohingya crisis and the ICC. Thirdly, the book discusses the relationship between the ongoing case of Gambia v. Myanmar at the ICJ and the proceedings of the ICC. Finally, the book concludes with an assessment of the legitimacy, effectiveness, and efficiency of the ICC in recent years.