Introduction -- Origins of complicity: domestic law intake -- The evolution of complicity as a construction for dealing with collective criminality -- Complicity in the jurisprudence of the ad hoc tribunals and hybrid courts -- Complicity and the hierarchy of the participation modes at the icc -- Complicity in international criminal law and law of state responsibility : comparative analysis -- Correlation between complicity and sentencing -- Conclusion : the place of complicity in international criminal law
Abstract: The right of access to justice is both procedural and substantive in nature. It is procedural because it guarantees availability of certain recourse mechanisms, not necessarily limited to a purely judicial route. It is also a substantive entitlement allowing for the enforcement of the idea of justice as fairness in each unique factual context. The right of access to justice as an attribute of the emerging global citizenship denotes our shared understanding that accountability comes in many forms and shapes, which are becoming gradually available to individuals and grassroots organizations on a global scale. This trend is powered by the technological advancements and the evolution of institutions tasked with ensuring world-wide interconnectedness. This paper critically engages with Thomas Marshall's essay on citizenship published in 1950, arguing that despite several limitations that became apparent in recent decades, this work is an important signpost on the road to building a comprehensive account of global citizenship as a status belonging to all of humanity.
This article examines the question of corporate complicity within the framework of international criminal law and, more specifically, at the International Criminal Court (ICC). It does so by referencing a communication to the ICC filed by several non-governmental organizations, inviting the prosecutor to examine potential criminal responsibility of several European corporate officials who are knowingly supplying weapons to the United Arab Emirates/Saudi-led coalition currently engaged in a military offensive in Yemen. This submission raises an important legal question of whether the ICC's Rome Statute provides for the possibility to hold corporate officials accountable in cases of complicity in gross human rights and humanitarian law violations. This article purports to answer this question by scrutinizing two specific provisions of the Rome Statute: Article 25(3)(c), which discusses aiding and abetting for the purpose of facilitating the commission of a crime, and Article 25(3)(d), which criminalizes contributions to the commission of a crime by a group of persons acting with a common purpose.
The future of the International Criminal Court (icc) is uncertain. The system established by the Rome Statute of the icc ensures that priority is given to domestic prosecutions, while at the same time, it imbues international values into national systems. The approach of the Court to the rights of the accused and victims' rights poses challenges. In the Al Senussi complementarity decision, the icc refused to act as a human rights court and rendered the case inadmissible, notwithstanding the death penalty threatening the accused if tried in Libya. Does the same reasoning hold true in other circumstances? The article explores the relationship between human rights law and international criminal law with specific reference to the principle of complementarity and argues that judicial discretion is central in the assessment of the degree of human rights protection at the icc.
Defence date: 9 June 2014 ; Examining Board: Professor Martin Scheinin, EUI (Supervisor) Professor Nehal Bhuta, EUI Professor William Schabas, Middlesex University, London Judge Christine Baroness Van den Wyngaert, International Criminal Court. ; This PhD thesis was awarded the Cappelletti Prize. ; Complicity is a criminal law doctrine that attributes responsibility to those who do not physically perpetrate the crime. It is an essential mode of liability for core international crimes because it reaches out to senior political and military leadership. These persons do not usually engage in direct offending, yet in the context of mass atrocities they are often more culpable than foot soldiers. The Statutes of the ad hoc tribunals, hybrid courts and the International Criminal Court expressly provide for different forms of complicity, and domestic legal systems recognize it in one form or another. This is in contrast with alternative modes of liability implied from the Statutes to address the situations with multiple accused removed from the scene of the crime / (in)direct co-perpetration, extended perpetration and the joint criminal enterprise.
