Search: Complementarity SAIF GADDAFI

...far more conservative approach to case selection, the processes of preliminary examination and complementarity means that the Court is not designed to have its success measured purely by the number of cases it completes, but also whether its presence can encourage effective domestic prosecutions, and some may argue serve as a deterrent. A simple data comparison of successful prosecutions to illustrate effectiveness therefore ignores that the ‘objective’ by which effectiveness is measured against, differs between the three organisations. The budget issue is in essence not new, but it is vital...

...2025, the Iranian government submitted the IDBIC to the Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis) for legislative consideration. The Bill must be situated within this global movement towards the nationalisation of ICL. Its preamble explicitly frames the initiative as a response to the international community’s rejection of impunity for perpetrators of core international crimes, emphasising that the globalisation of ICL—particularly through the adoption of the Rome Statute and its principle of complementarity—has provided the normative basis for national criminalisation.   The preamble further grounds the Bill in Islamic and constitutional principles. It highlights...

...the case under Article 17 of the Rome Statute. With regard to complementarity (Art. 53(1)(b) of the Statute), both Georgia and Russia have had sufficient time to undertake national investigations of conflict related crimes – more than 7 years. On the one hand, while the Russian Federation authorities have shown to be willing and able to conduct national proceedings (para. 50), the Court could not conclusively decide on the question regarding their inability to access crucial evidence (para. 46). On the other hand, the Georgian authorities seemed to have been...

...deployment described in Res. 1546 and the letters from the US and Iraqi representatives accompanying that resolution (including the statement in the US letter that the MNF operate in a framework “in which the contributing states have responsibility for exercising jurisdiction over their personnel”) meet the requirement of Art. 16 and preclude ICC jurisdiction. Finally, Art. 17 of the ICC statute requires “complementarity.” That means if a local or national investigation or prosecution of the conduct at issue is taking place, the Court is prohibited from exercising its jurisdiction. The...

...Phase 3 (admissibility requirements – complementarity and gravity pursuant to Article 17), and Phase 4 (interests of justice).  In the OTP’s architecture, Phase 1 is an initial assessment of all information received under Article 15 communications. The main purpose of this phase, as stipulated by the OTP, is to filter out information on crimes that are manifestly outside the jurisdiction of the Court. Indeed, the Experts’ Report recalls “the initial selection of situations occurs before the opening of a PE” (para 636). Nevertheless, in spite of its existence and important...

...crucial question is the role of regional organizations in international criminal justice. After the end of the Cold War, institutional development has quickly shifted from domestic to universal approaches. The role of regional institutions has long remained at the periphery. Recently, much attention has been devoted to regionalization in the context of African critiques of international criminal justice, and the Malabo Protocol. While the Protocol has many problems (e.g., in relation to crime base, complementarity or immunities), there seems to be at least some support for the general assumption that...

The Virginia Journal of International Law is delighted to continue its partnership with Opinio Juris this week in this online symposium featuring three pieces recently published by VJIL in Vol. 50:1, available here. On Wednesday, Professor Alexander K.A. Greenawalt, Associate Professor of Law, Pace University School of Law, will discuss Complementarity in Crisis: Uganda, Alternative Justice, and the International Criminal Court. Professor Greenawalt examines the difficult institutional problems faced by the International Criminal Court (ICC or Court) in the context of the Ugandan peace process. In recent years, the government...

...to ‘recruit, coach and fake evidence and witnesses to testify against President Bashir’. You have to admire the skill of the bribers. Judge de Gurmendi didn’t become a judge at the ICC until 2010 — long after the first arrest warrant for al-Bashir was issued. NOTE: Judge de Gurmendi was the head of the Jurisdiction, Complementarity, and Cooperation Division in the OTP from 2003-2006. But nearly four years passed from the end of her tenure to the issuance of the first arrest warrant for Bashir. So my sarcasm above stands....

...Gary Goertz and James Mahoney, A Tale of Two Cultures: Qualitative and Quantitative Inquiry in the Social Sciences (2012). We ourselves have been skeptical of the extent of this purported divide, as our prior collective and individual work has sought to integrate the strengths of the two approaches. Professor Christopher Roberts’ thoughtful comments on our article demonstrate, in our view, the basic complementarity of the methodologies. Our article demonstrates a set of statistical relationships that are consistent with the interpretation that we give them: that constitutional and international rights are...

...international climate change law is not enough to address the climate change crisis. Pacific Island countries should support the criminalizing of ecocide to ensure there is attention to prosecute natural persons and corporate entities that prevent reducing greenhouse gas emissions (see, for example, Taylor and Watts 2019). The ICC has a reserve justice mechanism. It is an institution established to end impunity, premised on the principle of complementarity as stipulated under Article 17 of the Rome Statute. Countries that are State Parties to the Rome Statute have to investigate and...

...state referral, rests on a clear premise: “Afghanistan is not presently carrying out genuine investigations in a manner that would justify a deferral of the Court’s investigations” or warrant deference under the principle of complementarity. In this context, the OTP’s task should not be limited to cataloguing discrete acts of violence. It must also examine whether the governing legal framework itself facilitates a widespread or systematic attack against the civilian population — which, as Professor Miles Jackson has noted, has already been done with respect to the narrower question of...

...commit the US internationally and Julian found a workaround toward a legally binding solution via a Security Council resolution on the matter. Kevin added a few of his thoughts on the recent domestic conviction by the Ivory Coast of Simone Gbagbo and complementarity at the ICC, and offered a mea culpa on the Israeli attacks on Hezbollah in 2006. Finally, Tom Ruys offered a response to a recent discussion with his guest post on self-defense and non-state actors in the Cold War Era. We saw a lot of discussion on...