Suchergebnisse

While the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court requires the judges of the Court to establish principles of reparations, the existing case law is developing on shaky doctrinal foundations, failing to take into account legal sources, particularly from national civil torts systems, that offer vital law and practice that could inform the Court's reparations orders. This article evaluates the legal basis of the existing reparations case law of the Court, arguing that undue prominence has been given to soft law human rights instruments while a lack of reference to the framework methodology in Article 21 of the Rome Statute has left the reparations principles weakly articulated. There are alternatives that the Court could consider in future, notably an increased role for and coordination with national justice systems, the potential for drawing on reparation rules from national torts systems, and the relevance of the lex loci damni principle. The article assesses these alternatives and proposes routes forward for the Court's reparations practice based on the Rome Statute's legal mandate.

AbstractThis article evaluates the role of the UN General Assembly ('UNGA') and its subsidiary organs in acting as a catalyst for action at the International Criminal Court ('ICC'). The power of the UN Security Council ('UNSC') to make a referral to the ICC has been increasingly challenged in recent years, due to the perceived misuse of the veto by permanent members and general failings to enforce international criminal law in the face of documented atrocities. Meanwhile, the UNGA and its subsidiary organs have exerted meaningful pressure on the UNSC through the creation of commissions of inquiry and country-specific resolutions. There is the possibility for the UNGA to engage in dialogue with the ICC through 'quasi-judicial' resolutions, in coordinating collective responses to a recalcitrant State and individual perpetrators and also through the possible assumption of a referral power. This analysis reveals that the UNGA has become increasingly active in international justice and holds the potential for an enhanced role in addressing the failings of the current UNSC-dominated paradigm governing UN–ICC relations, thereby facilitating States in 'uniting against impunity'.