Search: Complementarity SAIF GADDAFI
06 Feb The PTC’s Bizarre Request for Additional Information About Afghanistan
...the Court has been or is being committed”; (2) admissibility is not an issue; and (3) there are no “substantial reasons to believe that an investigation would not serve the interests of justice.” There is no question that the OTP’s request for authorization satisfies requirements 1 and 3, and it cannot seriously be argued that complementarity — the first aspect of the admissibility requirement — counsels against opening the Afghanistan investigation. As the request itself notes, none of the relevant parties (the Afghan government, the US government, and the armed...30 Dec Special Double Issue on the ICC
Last year, as I was reading an early draft of the agenda for the ICC’s Review Conference in 2010, I asked myself what I would change about the Rome Statute if I was King of the Assembly of States Parties. My answer was that I would amend Article 17, the complementarity provision, to make a case admissible if a national proceeding did not provide the defendant with due process — an issue I had written about before. (You can find the essay here, if you’re interested.) I then wondered what...
01 Nov While Pursuing International Justice at the ICC, the US and UK Must Ensure Justice at Home
...primary obligation to investigate and prosecute its nationals who commit crimes under international law in Afghanistan, the ICC may not have cause to investigate US citizens. Finally, the ICC must develop a backbone in dealing with powerful countries like the US and UK. The OTP stretched the doctrine of complementarity to its very limits, when it decided that the domestic processes in the UK which led to zero prosecutions, were sufficient to avert an investigation by the court. Similarly, the Court’s decision to “deprioritise” the investigation of the US activities...
09 May Why Does the United States Continue to Oppose International Courts?
...investigate individual suspects and seek indictments against them as long as they fall under the subject matter jurisdiction defined by the Rome Statute. The ICC’s process is characterized by deferential complementarity. Its primary duty is to ensure that national court systems are given sufficient opportunity to “investigate and prosecute individuals suspected of committing atrocity crimes referred to the Court” (p. 75). The ICC takes initiative only after national courts are unwilling or unable to carry out proper investigations or prosecutions. After all, “the long-term objective is to strengthen the capabilities...18 Mar The United States Continues its Attacks against the International Criminal Court
...a repudiation of multilateral engagement and a repudiation of the rule of law. Specifically, Secretary Pompeo’s statements were not accompanied by any commitment to investigate and/or prosecute the crimes alleged to have been committed by U.S. nationals (members of the U.S. armed forced and members of the CIA) in Afghanistan—even though some of the crimes have been well-documented by the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Notably, the U.S.-ICC showdown could be avoided if the United States prosecuted these cases itself. Under the ICC’s complementarity regime, any state that...
30 Jun Language Matters: The Role of the Presumption of Innocence in Seeking Justice During the Russia-Ukraine Conflict
...meaning of ‘public authority’. Not surprisingly those who are directly involved in the prosecution are included – judges, prosecutors, police, and investigators. However, public authorities are not limited to those who have a direct connection with the criminal case. For example, a member of the ICC Office of the Prosecutor’s Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation Division was considered a public authority. In national jurisdictions public authorities include people who are legislators and those employed by the government. In international jurisdictions the term can extend to employees of the relevant international court,...21 Feb US Troops in Iraq: Likely out of Reach of the ICC
...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...09 Apr LJIL Symposium: A Consideration of ‘On the Functions of International Courts: An Appraisal in Light of Their Burgeoning Public Authority’
...democratic rights. In this light, it is worth looking at the rise of international adjudication in the post-Cold-War world along with the increasing attention to the problem of weak and failed states. The decisions of international adjudicators in the international criminal law and human rights law areas often respond directly to political and legal institutional failures or gaps at the level of the state. The authority of international adjudicators thus may be seen as relative to that of other institutions. This is explicitly contemplated by the conception of “complementarity” that...14 Oct Guest Post: Do All Roads Lead to Rome? Why Ukraine Resorts to Declarations Rather than Ratification of the Rome Statute
...regarding the repercussions of the ad hoc declarations in particular and ratification as a whole. For example, concerns over the new declaration being in breach of Article 5 of the Minsk II agreement which provides pardon and amnesty to those involved in the conflict in the Donbass region. However, under international law such amnesty has consistently been interpreted as excluding international crimes and gross human rights violations. Therefore, if Ukrainian courts are unable or unwilling to investigate and prosecute such crimes, the ICC’s complementarity principle can be activated, as it...
05 Aug Introduction to the Symposium on The Principle of ne bis in idem in International Criminal Law by Gaiane Nuridzhanian
...an excellent discussion of the inter-jurisdictional ne bis in idem rules in Article 20 (2) and (3) of the Rome Statute of the ICC. Dr. Iryna Marchuk, University of Copenhagen, and Dr. Aloka Wanigasuriya, University of Southern Denmark, investigate a topical issue of interaction between ne bis in idem and the principle of complementarity in the context of domestic prosecution of war crimes committed in Ukraine. Dr. Daniel R. Ruhweza of Makerere University in Uganda provides an insightful overview of challenges arising in connection with the application of ne bis...