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International Criminal Law as a Means to Fight the ‘Hostes Humani Generis’? On the Dangers of the Concept of Enemy Criminal Law

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Legal Certainty in a Contemporary Context

Abstract

The exercise of state power in the form of criminal punishment directly impacts on personal liberty of living individuals. In the criminal law judges can ultimately decide to imprison the offender. Taking into account the severity of the consequences for the individual standard liberal principles require an especially strong justification and limitation.

The certainty of this liberal basis seems to be at question when it comes to International Criminal Law: Recently some scholars do not shape International Criminal Law as liberal criminal law but as an enemy criminal Law – in other words as a means to fight the hostes humani generis – the enemies of all mankind.

International Criminal Law is about the core crimes of the international community: war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression. It has its modern roots in the war crimes tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo after the Second World War. In the 1990s the UN-Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to prosecute core crimes committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia during the ethnic conflicts, and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) to prosecute the Rwandan Genocide. In 2002, the first permanent, treaty based, International Criminal Court was established. The ICC is based on an international treaty. The ICC generally has jurisdiction only over crimes committed on the territory of a state party or by a citizen of a state party. However if the UN Security Council refers a situation to the Court, it has jurisdiction over crimes regardless of the place of commission or the nationality of the perpetrator.

The following analysis wants to contribute to the theoretical basis of this emerging field of criminal law. It begins with the concept of an enemy criminal law which law professor Günther Jakobs developed in German criminal law. After that the main focus is on the possible dimensions such a conception could have in the context of International Criminal Law. Regarding the critique of enemy criminal law the author highlights the question whether the conception is at odds with the principle of human dignity.

This article is based on a speech given at the conference “Law and Behavior” hosted by Kyushu University in February 2013. Thanks are given to Professor Petra Wittig for her continuing support and to Professor Toshiyuki Kono and Professor Mark Fenwick of Kyushu University for the fruitful conference.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    ICTY Judgment of 10 December 1998, Prosecutor vs. Furundzija, IT-95-17/1-T, no. 147 [citing a USA court in Filartiga v. Pena-Irala, 630 F. 2d 876, 2d Cir.1980.

  2. 2.

    Arendt (1985, p. 451, 2011, p. 400).

  3. 3.

    Jakobs (2000, p. 47, 2004a, p. 88, b, p. 47–48, 2006, p. 289).

  4. 4.

    Jakobs (2006), p. 293.

  5. 5.

    Jakobs (2000), p. 52.

  6. 6.

    Jakobs (2000), pp. 52 and 54.

  7. 7.

    Jakobs (2000, p. 53, 2004a, p. 92); similar Pawlik (2008), p. 40.

  8. 8.

    Jakobs (2004b), p. 47; Pawlik (2006), p. 291.

  9. 9.

    Pawlik (2006), p. 291.

  10. 10.

    Pawlik (2008), p. 40.

  11. 11.

    Jakobs (2004a), p. 95.

  12. 12.

    Jakobs (2004b), p. 44.

  13. 13.

    Jakobs (2006), p. 293.

  14. 14.

    Pawlik (2008), p. 38.

  15. 15.

    Duff (2009), p. 91.

  16. 16.

    Cicero (44 BC), III. 107.

  17. 17.

    Duff (2009), p. 81.

  18. 18.

    Luban (2004), p. 140.

  19. 19.

    Luban (2004), p. 140. It should be noted that the conception of “hostis humani generis” can be distinguished from the notion of “homo sacer” which is recently discussed in political philosophy especially by Agamben (2002) (see for an important analysis in the context of criminal law Wittig (2011)).

  20. 20.

    Jakobs (2004a), p. 94.

  21. 21.

    Jakobs (2000 p. 54, 2004a, p. 94).

  22. 22.

    Jakobs (2004a), p. 95.

  23. 23.

    Pawlik (2008), p. 40 in the context of terrorism.

  24. 24.

    See Blackstone (1765–1769), p. 71.

  25. 25.

    Pawlik (2008), p. 41.

  26. 26.

    Yosal Rogat; cited in Arendt (2011), p. 401.

  27. 27.

    Du Bois-Pedain (2011), p. 211.

  28. 28.

    Luban (2004), p. 140.

  29. 29.

    Arendt (1985), p. 451.

  30. 30.

    Arendt (2011), p. 387; Luban (2004), p. 140.

  31. 31.

    Zaffaroni (2009), p. 5.

  32. 32.

    Arendt (2011), p. 404.

  33. 33.

    Du Bois-Pedain (2011), p. 232.

  34. 34.

    Fronza (2007), p. 123.

  35. 35.

    Fiandaca (2009), p. 35; see also in the national context Neumann (2006), p. 305.

  36. 36.

    Fronza (2007), p. 123.

  37. 37.

    Koskenniemi (2002), p. 34.

  38. 38.

    Fronza (2007), p. 123.

  39. 39.

    Fronza (2007), p. 123.

  40. 40.

    Koskenniemi (2002), p. 34.

  41. 41.

    See, e.g., Pawlik (2006), p. 291.

  42. 42.

    ICTY press release no. 609 of 2 August 2001, available under www.icty.org/sid/7964.

  43. 43.

    Greco (2010), p. 40.

  44. 44.

    Kant (1797), Rechtslehre § 49 E I.

  45. 45.

    See Werkmeister (2015), p. 89–117.

  46. 46.

    Kant (1796).

  47. 47.

    Jakobs (2004b), pp. 43–44.

  48. 48.

    Luban (2004), p. 140.

  49. 49.

    Greco (2010), p. 47.

  50. 50.

    See Margalit (1996), p. 108.

  51. 51.

    See Habermas (2005), p. 98.

  52. 52.

    See Habermas (2010), p. 350.

  53. 53.

    Habermas (2005), p. 98.

  54. 54.

    Neumann (1998), p. 154.

  55. 55.

    Neumann (1998), p. 165.

  56. 56.

    Margalit (1996).

  57. 57.

    Margalit (1996), p. 70.

  58. 58.

    Werkmeister (2015), p. 111.

  59. 59.

    Petersen (2012), para. 9.

  60. 60.

    Neumann (2006), p. 313.

  61. 61.

    Articles 8(2)(b)(xxi) and 8(2)(c)(ii) ICC Statute.

  62. 62.

    Forst (2010), p. 734.

  63. 63.

    Peters (2011), p. 411.

  64. 64.

    Peters (2011), p. 411.

  65. 65.

    See also Werle (2012), para. 143.

  66. 66.

    Walter (2001), p. 196; see also Zaffaroni (2009), p. 8.

  67. 67.

    Werle (2012), para. 206.

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  1. Faculty of Law, Munich University, Munich, Germany

    Andreas Werkmeister

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  1. Andreas Werkmeister
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  1. Faculty of Law, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Japan

    Mark Fenwick

  2. Faculty of Law, Kyushu University, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka, Fukuoka, Japan

    Stefan Wrbka

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Werkmeister, A. (2016). International Criminal Law as a Means to Fight the ‘Hostes Humani Generis’? On the Dangers of the Concept of Enemy Criminal Law. In: Fenwick, M., Wrbka, S. (eds) Legal Certainty in a Contemporary Context. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0114-7_11

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