Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword by HE Judge Sang-Hyun Song
- Foreword by Patricia O’Brien
- Foreword by Silvia A. Fernandez de Gurmendi
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: bridge over troubled waters?
- PART I General reflections
- PART II Origin and genesis of complementarity
- PART III Analytical dimensions of complementarity
- PART IV Interpretation and application
- PART IV (Continued) Interpretation and application
- 21 States’ obligations to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of international crimes: the perspective of the European Court of Human Rights
- 22 The law and policy of complementarity in relation to ‘criminal proceedings’ carried out by non-state organized armed groups
- 23 Complementarity and the crime of aggression
- 24 Complementarity and alternative forms of justice
- 25 Complementarity and ‘reverse cooperation’
- 26 In the hands of the state: implementing legislation and complementarity
- PART V Complementarity in perspective
- PART VI Complementarity in practice
- Index
- References
24 - Complementarity and alternative forms of justice
A new test for ICC admissibility
from PART IV (Continued) - Interpretation and application
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2014
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Foreword by HE Judge Sang-Hyun Song
- Foreword by Patricia O’Brien
- Foreword by Silvia A. Fernandez de Gurmendi
- List of abbreviations
- Introduction: bridge over troubled waters?
- PART I General reflections
- PART II Origin and genesis of complementarity
- PART III Analytical dimensions of complementarity
- PART IV Interpretation and application
- PART IV (Continued) Interpretation and application
- 21 States’ obligations to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of international crimes: the perspective of the European Court of Human Rights
- 22 The law and policy of complementarity in relation to ‘criminal proceedings’ carried out by non-state organized armed groups
- 23 Complementarity and the crime of aggression
- 24 Complementarity and alternative forms of justice
- 25 Complementarity and ‘reverse cooperation’
- 26 In the hands of the state: implementing legislation and complementarity
- PART V Complementarity in perspective
- PART VI Complementarity in practice
- Index
- References
Summary
Certain commentators believe that domestic resort to alternative resolution (justice) mechanisms (‘ARMs’), such as Uganda's mato oput (a local tribal rite) or truth commissions, can relieve the International Criminal Court (‘ICC’) of its obligation to prosecute under the complementarity principle. However, this literature provides only general suggestions for how the ICC could determine whether alternative mechanisms render a case inadmissible under the complementarity regime. This chapter proposes a concrete set of analytic criteria the ICC can use to formulate an admissibility test for conducting complementarity analysis in difficult cases of municipal reliance on ARMs.
The admissibility test entails consideration and parsing of five categories: (1) the circumstances surrounding the ICC referral and request for deferral; (2) the political system and infrastructure in the domestic jurisdiction; (3) the ARM itself; (4) the crimes at issue; and (5) the prosecution target. The chapter demonstrates that, although it would be rare, some alternative justice proposals – especially those that mix and match ARMs and combine them with domestic criminal trials – might pass the proposed complementarity admissibility test. In the end, this analysis helps illuminate our increasingly complex understanding of the relationship between international criminal law and local initiatives in situations of gross human rights violations. Effective atrocity justice, the chapter contends, entails a proper division of labor between local restoration and global retribution. While complementarity could be the ideal medium through which to achieve that allocation, the proposed analytic criteria should be used to weave both peace and justice more seamlessly into the procedural fabric of international criminal law.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The International Criminal Court and ComplementarityFrom Theory to Practice, pp. 745 - 806Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2011
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