The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the first permanent international criminal tribunal, which has jurisdiction over the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole: genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and crime of aggression. This book critically analyses the law and practice of the ICC and its contribution to the development of international criminal law and policy.

The book focuses on the key procedural and substantive challenges faced by the ICC since its establishment. The critical analysis of the normative framework aims to...

When studying international law there is often a risk of focusing entirely on the content of international rules (i.e. regimes), and ignoring why these regimes exist and to what extent the rules affect state behavior. Similarly, international relations studies can focus so much on theories based on the distribution of power among states that it overlooks the existence and relevance of the rules of international law. Both approaches hold their dangers. The overlooking of international relations risk assuming that states actually follow international law, and discounting the specific rules...

Today human rights represent a primary concern of the international legal system. The international community s commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights, however, does not always produce the results hoped for by the advocates of a more justice-oriented system of international law. Indeed international law is often criticised for, "inter alia," its enduring imperial character, incapacity to minimize inequalities and failure to take human suffering seriously. Against this background, the central question that this book aims to answer is whether the adoption of the 2007...

Duncan Gaswaga, a former judge of the Seychelles Supreme Court who has presided over numerous piracy trials, asked the following question: -What is a judge to do when a bearded piracy suspect facing justice asserts that he is fourteen?- This book addresses this important question by focusing on the treatment of juvenile piracy suspects under international law within national prosecutorial regimes. Beginning with the modern-day Somali piracy model, and exploring the reasons for piracy organizers and financiers to have employed Somali youth as pirates, author Milena Sterio analyzes the...

This book discusses the manner in which Britain s wars, which took place between 2000 and 2015, have interacted with the relevant principles of international law and English law for the purpose, primarily, of considering legal accountability.

During a debate in the House of Lords in 2005 a former Chief of the Defence Staff commented that the Armed Forces are under legal siege. The book will discuss the major legal issues which have arisen, ranging from the various votes in Parliament to go to war, the constitutional relationship between ministers and senior commanders, the right under...

This book aims to evaluate the contribution of Latin America to the development of international law at the International Court of Justice (ICJ). This contemporary approach to international adjudication includes the historical contribution of the region to the development of international law through the emergence of international jurisdictions, as well as the procedural and material contribution of the cases submitted by or against Latin American states to the ICJ to the development of international law. The project then conceives international jurisdictions from a multifunctional...

With the sensational arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998, the rise to prominence of universal jurisdiction over crimes against international law seemed to be assured. The arrest of Pinochet and the ensuing proceedings before the UK courts brought universal jurisdiction into the foreground of the "fight against impunity" and the principle was read as an important complementary mechanism for international justice one that could offer justice to victims denied an avenue by the limited jurisdiction of international criminal tribunals. Yet by the time of the International...

The act of fighting or being a fighter has certain consequences in international law. The most obvious example can be found in international humanitarian law, where a distinction is drawn between fighters and civilians, with fighters being military objectives and civilians being protected from attack. Another example is from international human rights law, where it has been held that the particular characteristics of military life have to be taken into account when interpreting the human rights of members of state armed forces. This volume focuses on the field of international criminal law...

This book explores the right to democracy in international law and contemporary democratic theory, asking whether international law encompasses a substantive or procedural understanding of the notion. The book considers whether there can be considered to be a basis for the right to democracy in international customary law through identification of the relevant State practice and opinio juris, as well as through an evaluation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and whether the relevant provisions might be interpreted as forming customary law. The book then goes on to...