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Distributed for University of Wales Press

Crimes Against Humanity

The Limits of Universal Jurisdiction in the Global South

Currently, there is an engorging fascination with and heightened expectations from international legal accountability. Crimes Against Humanity examines whether international criminal law, in particular legislation and institutions pertaining to war crimes and crimes against humanity, is equipped to be a panacea for the ills of the recalcitrant nation-state system. The main thread that runs through the text is to determine the ultimate aim and efficacy of adjudicating some of the most egregious infractions of the internationally sanctioned human rights regime. While international criminal law strives to develop a shared understanding of, and golden standards for, acceptable behavior of states and governments, it also suffers from a degree of institutional idealism pertaining to current accountability regimes in public international law. Focusing on the Global South, it also examines the problem-laden notion of collective responsibility for societal and political mass crimes and questions the merits of disproportionate reliance on international criminal law in the aftermath of civil wars, ethnic cleansing, genocidal violence, and mass exodus.
 

336 pages | 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 | © 2021

International Law

International Law

Law and Legal Studies: International Law


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Table of Contents

Introduction
Chapter I. Topographies of Universal Jurisdiction in International Law, Legal Pluralism and the Curious Case of the International Criminal Court
Introduction
I. Applications of Legal Pluralism in International Law: a Topographical Outlook
A. The Legacy of the New Haven School
B. TWAIL Scholarship and the Radical Pluralism Debate
C. Radical Pluralism and Beyond
II. Transnational Character of Accountability Regimes in International Law and Multicentricity of Legal Practices
A. Fragmentation in International Law and the Fragile Balance of Primary and Secondary Rules in Accountability Regimes
B. The Project of International Law and the Jurisprudential Promise of the ICC: Disciplining the Domestic Realm through International Criminal Law?
D. The Mandate of International Criminal Court: Jurisprudential versus Political Realities
Conclusion
Chapter II: Universal Jurisdiction and Genealogies of International Criminal Law
Introduction
II. Legitimacy of International Law: Lingering Questions
III. The Question of the State in International Law as Seen from the Global South: A Chance to Start Anew?
IV. Jus Gentium and the Outer Limits of International Law
V. Jus Cogens or Not—Dilemmas?
Conclusion
Chapter III. Crimes Against Humanity Jurisprudence in International Law and The Conundrum of Jurisdictional Certainty
Introduction
I. The Normative Achitecture of Crimes Against Humanity Jurisprudence
II. Competing Politico-Normative Visions
III. Adjudication, Responsibility and the Law: Limits of Universal Jurisdiction
Conclusion
Chapter IV. Mea culpa, Sua culpa, Tua Maxima Culpa: Collective Responsibility, Societal WrongDoing and Legal Judgment
Introduction
I. Beyond Eichmann: On the Necessity of Judgment
II. Towards an Engaged Theory of Judgment and Collective Responsibility
B. The Outcomes Perspective
III. Collective Responsibility and Legal Judgment in International Law: The Jaspers Alternative?
IV. Moral Responsibility as an Epicurian Cure for the Conundrums of International Criminal Law?
V. Collective Responsibility and the Distribution of Blameworthiness
Conclusion: The Dilemma of the Sum Total versus Its Constitutive Parts
Chapter V. Through the Looking Glass: Hybrid Courts and International Criminal Law in the Global South
Introduction
A. More Than Each unto His Own -- Hybrid Courts in the Global South
II. The Clarion Call of Universal Jurisdiction in the Global South
A. The ICC and Domestic Applications of the Rome Statute
B. The ICC and the Importance of the Complementarity Principle for the International Legal Accountability
III. Hybrid Courts: Fractured or Overlapping Legal Regimes of Accountability?
Conclusion: Hybrid Courts as New Actors of International Criminal Law in the Global South?
In Lieu of Conclusion: Deliverance of Justice in International Criminal Law and the Role of Political Judgment as Purposive Action

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