Cyber operations are becoming an increasing part of armed conflict. This article assesses whether cyber operations against data during an armed conflict could amount to a war crime in the Statute of the International Criminal Court. It unpacks the plausibility of computer data being included in the categories of ‘object’ and ‘property’ in the Statute, showing there is no doctrinal and jurisprudential

This article examines how a cyber-operation that has consequences similar to a kinetic or physical attack — causing serious loss of life or physical damage — could be encompassed within the crimes prosecuted before the International Criminal Court (ICC). It explains when and how such a cyber-operation could fall within the ambit of the ICC’s crimes — genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and

This article provides an ethnographically informed comparative case study of the atrocity archiving work being undertaken by two entities: the not-for-profit, civil society organization, the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), and the United Nations’ International, Impartial, and Independent Mechanism for Syria (IIIM). Insights from data collected are read alongside debates

XabierAgirreMortenBergsmoSimonDe SmetCarstenStahn (eds), Quality Control in Criminal Investigation (Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher, 2020) 1108 pp. (e-book) ISBN 978-82-8348-130-3

Though there is an abundance of literature on the relationship between the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court ('ICC') and the immunities of non-state parties to the ICC Statute, the arrest process under Part 9 of the ICC Statute has not yet been addressed from the perspective of international organizations law. Yet, the ICC is certainly an international organization, and its arrest process

Rio de Janeiro’s ‘war on drugs’ is notorious for its outrageous violence in the metropolis’ poorest neighbourhoods, the ‘favelas’, which are home to over a million people. Many of these favelas are under the rule of heavily armed drug gangs whose social and territorial control is only sporadically challenged by the state. The local government has increasingly opted for so-called ’incursions’ into these

AbstractOffences against the administration of international criminal justice are a serious threat to the effective functioning of international criminal tribunals entrusted by the international community with the punishment of perpetrators of the worst atrocities that humanity experiences. That is why the mechanisms which prosecute these offences must be highly efficient. The concept of a ‘prosecutor

LowerWendy, The Ravine: A Family, a Photograph, a Holocaust Massacre Revealed (Head of Zeus, 2021) 258 pp. 24.78 €. ISBN 9781800246645

I first met Robert Cryer in 1995 at the University of Nottingham when he was reading for his LLM. He had come from Cardiff with an LLB, and then signed up to work on a PhD in international criminal law under Nigel White and Dino Kritsiotis’s supervision. He completed his thesis in 2001. I was his internal examiner and was struck by the fact that he knew then a great deal more about his chosen subject

1. In your view, what is/are the foundation(s) and rationale(s) for the repression of torture at the international level and, more specifically, under the UNCAT, human rights conventions and other legal instruments?

‘The thing that is in Room 101 is the worst thing in the world’, George Orwell wrote in 1984. It ‘varies from individual to individual. It may be burial alive, or death by fire, or by drowning, or by impalement, or fifty other deaths. There are cases where it is some quite trivial thing, not even fatal.’ Room 101 represented, in Orwell’s dystopia, torture’s destruction of the human body and soul. And

Abstract In legal discourse, ‘torture’ is a term used to describe the deliberate infliction of severe physical or mental pain and suffering upon a person. One controversial aspect of the legal definition of torture has been the status of the perpetrator, whose acts are relevant for the purposes of the torture definition under international law. This ambiguity came to the forefront in the judgment of

AbstractThe obligation to codify enforced disappearance as an autonomous offence under domestic criminal legislation is well established in international law and jurisprudence, and it responds to the need to adequately comprehend and address the extraordinarily complex nature of this crime. Yet very few states abide by such an obligation. When called upon to explain this failure, those lacking a separate

AbstractThis article analyses the division of labour and patterns of elite reproduction that characterize international criminal justice as a market of services. Using a sociological framework and building on empirical data on 996 professional agents, the analysis outlines how the market in and around the international criminal courts is structured by three different social groups that dominate the

Whether state officials enjoy functional immunity under customary international law, in foreign proceedings for crimes under customary international law, is a question of central importance for the effective enforcement of international criminal law stricto sensu. This legal issue has recently attracted significant attention because of the work of the International Law Commission (ILC) on the topic

TomDannenbaum, The Crime of Aggression, Humanity, and the Soldier (Cambridge University Press, 2018) 352 pp. £26.99 (Paperback) ISBN 978-1-316-62039-7

AbstractShai Dothan rejects my submission that the Swiss cheese model of accident prevention provides a useful framework for a convincing deterrence-based defence of the International Criminal Court (ICC). I believe that Dothan’s critique is mistaken. Proceeding via a restatement and an expansion of my original argument this paper explains why. First, I outline the original idea of coupling a deterrence-based

AbstractThis article reflects on the landmark use of photo and video evidence in the Affaire Castro et Kizito. In 2018, a mobile military court in Kalehe, South Kivu, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) tried two members of the Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR) for crimes against humanity and war crimes. This case broke new ground not only in the DRC, but also globally. For

Researchers working with digital evidence must be aware of its vulnerabilities if they hope to maximize its value for justice and accountability. In this paper, we highlight two important vulnerabilities: the impermanent nature of digital evidence, and its susceptibility to attack from online dis/misinformation campaigns. We argue that to overcome the challenge that the impermanent nature of digital

MettrauxGuénaёl, International Crimes: Law and Practice, Volume I: Genocide (Oxford University Press, 2019) 544 pp. (Hardcover) £125 ISBN 9780198843115;Volume II: Crimes Against Humanity (Oxford University Press, 2020) 960 pp. (Hardcover) £175 ISBN 9780198860099

Jérômede Hemptinne, Les conflits armés en mutation (Pedone, 2019) 358 pp. €54 ISBN 9782233009357

The legal framework of the International Criminal Court does not contain any provision concerning animals. This stands in contrast with the frequency with which they appear in both trial and reparations proceedings. The silence of the legal framework is problematic insofar as the ‘animal turn movement’, which questions the classical understanding and treatment of animals as objects, has permeated into

1. In your view, what is/are the foundation(s) and rationale(s) for the repression of torture at the international level and, more specifically, under the UNCAT, human rights conventions and other legal instruments?

Violence against Muslims and Dalits in India has drastically increased since the incumbent political party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), came to power in 2014. Around 85% of perpetrators are alleged to have been associated either with the BJP or its sister Hindu organizations. In at least some cases, law enforcement agencies have been either indifferent or hostile to the victims. Such crimes may

Given that the Rome Statute is only binding upon its member states, there is a certain element of judicial megalomania in the recurrent claim by the International Criminal Court (ICC) that it acts ‘on behalf of the international community as a whole’ in its endeavour to end impunity for international crimes. Focusing on recent ICC rulings concerning the nature and function of the Court, this article

AbstractThis comment argues that President Biden’s revocation of Trump’s Executive Order 13928, which declared a national emergency and authorized the imposition of various sanctions on officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC), does not represent a fundamental reorientation in the relationship between the United States and the ICC. Offering an overview of this vexed relationship, the author

The entry into force of the Protocol on Amendments to the Protocol on the Statute of the African Court of Justice and Human Rights (hereinafter the Malabo Protocol) will imply the activation of the International Criminal Law Section of the African Court of Justice and Human and Peoples’ Rights, along with the new crimes there included — among them, the crime of unconstitutional change of government

deGuzmanMargaret, Shocking the Conscience of Humanity: Gravity and the Legitimacy of International Criminal Law (Oxford University Press, 2020) 240 pp. £80.00 ISBN 9780198786153

After years of uneasy interactions between successive administrations of the United States and the International Criminal Court (ICC) — ranging from apathy to indifference to tacit utilitarian engagement behind the scenes — the administration of President Donald Trump unleashed the most intense aggression against the Court, marked by direct coercive measures against the Court’s officials. This followed

A central aim of international criminal tribunals since Nuremberg has been to prosecute those most responsible, the ‘big fish’, leaving smaller cases to national jurisdictions. The authors, who have both academic backgrounds as well as experience prosecuting international crimes in both international and domestic courts, argue that the International Criminal Court (ICC) should change course and expand

AbstractCountless women and girls have been abducted, raped, forcibly assigned as ‘wives’ to combatants and held captive within such forced marriages in conflict zones around the world. Forced marriage as an international crime remains controversial because it (i) is not codified in any international criminal statute, (ii) involves conduct overlapping with already-enumerated crimes against humanity

Between April 2012 and January 2013, the historic city of Timbuktu, Mali was ravaged in a series of widespread and systematic attacks, some of which have been characterized as potential crimes against humanity, others as possible war crimes. Many of the victims were civilians. Those believed responsible were members of Ansar Dine and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, who were alleged to have committed

AbstractDigital reconstructions of crime scenes have been used more frequently in both domestic and international courts as technology becomes more developed and accessible to courtroom actors. Though digital reconstructions can be beneficial, especially in the context of international criminal law, as they allow judges to visit crime scenes which would otherwise be too expensive or dangerous to travel

DubberleySamKoenigAlexa and MurrayDaragh (editors), Digital Witness: Using Open Source Information for Human Rights Investigation, Documentation and Accountability (Oxford University Press, 2020) 360 pp. £29.99 (Paperback) ISBN 9780198836070

Reserve forces constitute an important component in most armies and play a crucial role in times of war. Notwithstanding, the legal status of reservists, when mobilized or demobilized, and their possible detention or classification as a military target according to international law has rarely been discussed. It is only in the last case before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

WeillSharonSeelingerKim ThuyCarlsonKerstin Bree (eds), The President on Trial: Prosecuting Hissène Habré (Oxford University Press, 2020) 465 pp. £95 (Hardcover) ISBN 9780198858621

There is a hopeful story to be told with respect to the activation of the crime of aggression at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Activation will either add to deterrence, or at worst will be harmlessly symbolic. But what if the premise is wrong? What if there is a risk that activation of the crime of aggression will undermine rather than advance deterrence? It matters not that the crime is

1. The international repression of torture may be connected to different rationales. In the decision in R v. Reeves Taylor (Appellant),1 the Supreme Court, while interpreting the meaning of ‘a person acting in an official capacity’ in section 134(1) CJA, examined two possible ratios, i.e. state-nexus and de facto governmental authority-nexus. What is, in your view, the essence and the foundation of

This article addresses the role of new technologies in the international justice and accountability landscape, drawing from research we conducted into new United Nations (UN) accountability mechanisms that have the explicit mandate to collect, collate, analyse and preserve evidence of international crimes according to criminal justice standards. The article is divided in four parts. First, we contextualize

1. In your view, what is/are the foundation(s) and rationale(s) for the repression of torture at the international level and, more specifically, under the UNCAT?

The procedural law of the International Criminal Court (ICC) combines common law and civil law concepts in a ‘unique compromise’. It gives the judges broad discretion to determine which adversarial and inquisitorial elements fit best into the overall system of the Rome Statute. In exercising their discretion judges cannot, of course, deny their legal background. However, sticking to the familiar practice

AbstractThis article explores a novel approach to technology-enabled review of evidentiary material implemented by the United Nations International, Independent and Impartial Mechanism – Syria ('IIIM – Syria’ or ‘the Mechanism’). The Mechanism’s objective in pursuing automation is to significantly accelerate the speed and improve the consistency of review and analysis of large, digitized documentary

AbstractThe constituent documents of the International Criminal Court (ICC) were formulated in the 1990s, at a time when the internet was still relatively new to most of society. In the four years between the signing of the Rome Statute in 1998 and its entry into force in 2002, there was a surge in technological development. The replacement of dial-up connections by home broadband and wireless internet

Digital open source information — including the videos and photographs that people post to social media and other publicly accessible platforms — is increasingly valued as a critical source of evidence. While investigators have repeatedly established the value of open source information for researching a range of crimes, there is a subset of crimes that investigators have struggled to address with

The conflicts in Syria and Iraq, being some of the most documented in history, have also led to one of the largest influxes of refugees to Europe in recent years. Many of the asylum seekers arriving in European cities identified themselves, or have been identified, as victims, witnesses or perpetrators of atrocities. Consequently, criminal investigations have been initiated by the local police with

AbstractIn an article published a few years ago, my friend Jakob Holtermann compared the International Criminal Court (ICC) to a slice of Swiss cheese. The metaphor is meant to indicate that the ICC operates as a filter that deters some of the criminals left undeterred by national criminal law systems. This is true. But the metaphor also suggests that the ICC would only deter extra criminals and would

1. The international repression of torture may be connected to different rationales. In the judgment in R v. Reeves Taylor (Appellant),11 the Supreme Court, while interpreting the meaning of ‘a person acting in an official capacity’ in section 134(1) CJA, examined two possible two possible lines of reasoning, i.e. state-nexus and de facto governmental authority-nexus. What is, in your view, the essence

1. In your view, what is/are the foundation(s) and rationale(s) for the repression of torture at the international level and, more specifically, under the UNCAT, human rights conventions and other legal instruments?

NigelEltringham, Genocide Never Sleeps. Living Law at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda ( Cambridge University Press, 2019) 234 pp. £85.00 (Hardcover) ISBN 978-1108485593

BohoslavskyJuan Pablo, FernándezKarinna and SmartSebastián (eds), Complicidad económica con la dictadura chilena. Un país desigual a la fuerza (LOM Ediciones, 2019), 480 pp. 22000 Chilean Pesos. ISBN 978-956-00-1144-2 (digital ISBN 978-956-00-1209-8)

AbstractDigital open source information has been heralded for its democratizing potential, insofar as it allows access to a much broader range of sources and voices than would normally be consulted through traditional methods of information gathering for international criminal investigations. It also helps to overcome some of the physical access barriers that are commonplace in international criminal

This article challenges scholarly claims that a post-national ‘cosmopolitan citizenship’ — an expanded and less territorially bounded belonging of ‘humanity’ — has been emerging in the international criminal justice context. In examining the contemporary denationalization of terrorists from the under-explored angle of criminal justice, this article argues that states’ territorial borders prevent denationalized

Just as the internal combustion engine revolutionized warfare in the early twentieth century, artificial intelligence is shaping warfare in the Digital Age. Fuelled by data rather than gasoline, artificial intelligence (AI) derivative technologies are driven by innovation in both the military and civilian sectors. Today’s defence scientists and engineers, like their predecessors, develop physical equipment

AbstractWithin the broader context of the problems raised by the interaction between humans and machines in weaponry and targeting, this paper deals with the specific issue of the mens rea required to establish responsibility for the war crime of indiscriminate attacks, in the context of attacks performed with semi-autonomous weapons or with the support of artificial intelligence (AI) in targeting

AtadjanovRustam, Humanness as a Protected Legal Interest of Crimes Against Humanity: Conceptual and Normative Aspects ( Asser Press, 2019) 324 pp. (Hardback) £109 ISBN 978-94-6265-298-9

SandsPhilippe, The Ratline: Love, Lies and Justice on the Trail of a Nazi Fugitive ( Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2020) 412 pp. (Hardback) £20.00 ISBN 978 1 4746 0812 1

AbstractThe Office of the Prosecutor’s preliminary examination into the Situation in Afghanistan came to an end with the Appeals Chamber approving its request for authorization of an investigation. In doing so it overturned the decision of the Pre-Trial Chamber, which for the first time in the International Criminal Court’s history had invoked the criterion of ‘interests of justice’ to deny the request

Jon HellerKevin, MégretFrédéric, NouwenSarah M.H., OhlinJens David, and RobinsonDarryl (eds), The Oxford Handbook of International Criminal Law (Oxford University Press, 2020), 912 pp. £145.00. ISBN 9780198825203

AbstractAs the cornerstone of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the principle of complementarity provides that states have the primary responsibility to investigate and prosecute international crimes, and only when they are inactive, unwilling or unable to genuinely investigate and prosecute the ICC may exercise its jurisdiction. However, the relevance of sentences and sanctions, their severity

AbstractIn December 2019, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court concluded her preliminary examination into the situation in Palestine, determining there is a reasonable basis to initiate an investigation into the situation. Instead of doing so, she first decided to seek a ruling from the Pre-Trial Chamber on the scope of the Court’s territorial jurisdiction, specifically aimed at confirming