Symposia

[Stephen A. Lamony (LL.M) is an International Lawyer, Ex-Senior Foreign Policy Advisor, Ex-Senior United Nations Advocate for Africa-Amnesty International and Ex- Head of Advocacy and Policy, Coalition for the International Criminal Court.] Introduction The United States has long had the reputation as the world leader and has prided itself on leading the world in support of human rights. A longstanding stain on the United States’ record, however, has been its...

[Rashmi Dharia is a doctoral candidate at Sciences Po Law School, Paris.] As of 2nd April 2021, the Biden administration rescinded the sanctions that had been imposed by Executive Order 13928 of 11th June 2020 and its follow-up on 2nd September 2020 on ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda and the Head of the Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Co-operation Division Mr Phakiso Mochochoko. The US-ICC relationship looks all set to ‘go back’ from...

[Satang Nabaneh is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the Centre for Human Rights, Faculty of Law, University of Pretoria, and the Founder and Executive Director of Law Hub Gambia. She currently pursues research interests including international human rights law and monitoring mechanisms, democratization in Africa, and Gambian constitutional law.] On September 2, 2020, the Trump administration announced that the United States had designated the International Criminal Court (ICC)...

[Chidi Anselm Odinkalu is Senior Manager for Africa with the Open Society Justice Initiative. He received his Ph.D. in law from the London School of Economics & Political Science and is a former Chair of Nigeria’s National Human Rights Commission.] The invocation of sanctions against senior officials of the International Criminal Court (ICC) by the Trump administration in 2020, has been the subject of considerable examination and...

[Nabil M. Orina is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre of Excellence for International Courts (iCourts), Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. He holds a PhD from City University of Hong Kong.] President Trump’s sanctions against the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (the Court), Fatou Bensouda and the Head of Jurisdiction, Complementarity and Cooperation Division, Phakiso Mochochoko have rightly attracted condemnation from states as well...

[Sharon Nakandha is a Program Officer with the Africa Regional Office of the Open Society Foundations.] ‘The United States will use any means necessary to protect our citizens and those of our allies from unjust prosecution by this illegitimate court. We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC and we certainly will not join...

[Oumar Ba is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at Morehouse College.] On 2 April 2021, President Biden rescinded the sanctions that the Trump administration had imposed on Fatou Bensouda and Phakiso Mochochoko – the two most senior African officials in the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor. These sanctions were preceded by visa restrictions on ICC personnel in 2019 and a visa ban on Bensouda. Sanction regimes...

[Owiso Owiso is a Doctoral Researcher in Public International Law at the University of Luxembourg.] Those Sanctioned… and Those Not Sanctioned The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as currently structured has five persons at the helm, the Prosecutor, Deputy Prosecutor and three division directors (investigations; jurisdiction, complementarity and cooperation (JCCD); and prosecutions). Two of these persons, the Prosecutor Ms Fatou...

[Sharon Nakandha is a Program Officer with the Africa Regional Office of the Open Society Foundations and Owiso Owiso is a Doctoral Researcher in Public International Law at the University of Luxembourg.] In March 2020, following a decision of the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) which authorised the Prosecutor to open an investigation in Afghanistan, Mike Pompeo, then-Secretary of State of the United...

[Darryl Robinson is an Associate Professor at Queen’s University Faculty of Law (Canada), specializing in international criminal justice.] I am deeply grateful to each of the contributors for their excellent additions to the conversation.  One of the themes of Justice in Extreme Cases is the important of deliberation in figuring out a framework for moral principles.  I agree with and welcome the...

[Saira Mohamed is Professor of Law at the UC Berkeley School of Law.] Darryl Robinson’s Justice in Extreme Cases: Criminal Law Theory Meets International Criminal Law offers a detailed and convincing argument for a mutually beneficial relationship between international criminal law and criminal law theory: just as criminal law theory can clarify and improve international criminal law, international criminal law can clarify and improve criminal law theory.  Based...

[Harmen van der Wilt is professor in International Criminal law at the University of Amsterdam.] In the lingering debate whether superior responsibility should be considered as a mode of accessorial liability or rather should qualify as a separate offence of dereliction of duty, Darryl Robinson has defended the former position. For the sake of brevity, a summary of the discussion should suffice. Scholars and practitioners who...