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Substantive Law in Indirect Enforcement System

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Multilayered Structures of International Criminal Law

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Abstract

The establishment of international judicial institutions such as the ad hoc international criminal tribunals and International Criminal Court (ICC) has not denied the national prosecution of core crimes. Although the definition of these crimes that has been formulated by customary international law is also applicable in national proceedings, the legal framework of general principles of criminal responsibility is complex in reflecting the concurrence of direct and indirect enforcement systems. The general principles that are applied in the process of direct enforcement are not necessarily applied also in the indirect enforcement system in national courts. Meanwhile, the definition of crimes under international law in the broad sense, such as the crimes of torture, terrorism, drug trafficking, and other types of organized crimes, is articulated under respective multilateral conventions. The definition is relevant within each conventional regime. General principles of criminal responsibility are not provided for at the international level basically as it is expected that relevant national laws will be applied in the national prosecution of these crimes.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Article 4 of the Genocide Convention provides, “[p]ersons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in article III shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.” See Sect. 3.8.7 of Part I for detailed discussions.

  2. 2.

    Article 86(2) of Additional Protocol I provides, “[t]he fact that a breach of the Conventions or of this Protocol was committed by a subordinate does not absolve his superiors from penal or disciplinary responsibility, as the case may be, if they knew, or had information which should have enabled them to conclude in the circumstances at the time, that he was committing or was going to commit such a breach and if they did not take all feasible measures within their power to prevent or repress the breach.”

  3. 3.

    See Sect. 3.8.6 of Part I.

  4. 4.

    Draft Code of Crimes, pp. 39–42.

  5. 5.

    Draft Statute for an International Criminal Court, Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 1994, Vol. II, Part Two, pp. 20–74.

  6. 6.

    Report of the Preparatory Committee on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, Vol. 2 (Compilation of Proposals), U.N. Doc., A/51/22 (1996).

  7. 7.

    Satō (2012), pp. 768–769.

  8. 8.

    See the discussions of Sects. 3.8.3 and 3.8.5 of Part I, for instance. See also Darcy and Powderly (2010); Lamb (2002).

  9. 9.

    Neuner (2003), p. 105. See Article 1, Sections 2–4 of the Act to Introduce the Code of Crimes Against International Law, 2002, in International Committee of the Red Cross, National Implementation of IHL, https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl-nat.nsf/vwLawsByCountry.xsp [hereinafter National Implementation of IHL], Accessed 29 May 2021.

  10. 10.

    Article 32(2) only recognizes the mistake of legal element as an exempting factor. See Sect. 3.8.5 of Part I for detailed discussions.

  11. 11.

    Neuner (2003), pp. 120–121.

  12. 12.

    Section 56(1) of the International Criminal Court Act, 2001, http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2001/17/section/56, Accessed 29 May 2021. See also Section 9(1) of the International Criminal Court (Scotland) Act, 2001, https://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2001/13/section/9, Accessed 29 May 2021.

  13. 13.

    Explanatory Notes, para. 100, http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2001/17/notes/division/4/5/7, Accessed 29 May 2021.

  14. 14.

    Sections 3–8 of the Act, in National Implementation of IHL.

  15. 15.

    Sections 10–16 of the Act.

  16. 16.

    Bevers et al. (2003), pp. 183, 186–187.

  17. 17.

    See Arai et al. (2008), pp. 359–383; Takayama (2008), pp. 384–408; Masaki (2008), pp. 409–426.

  18. 18.

    See Frände (2003), p. 53 on the Finnish law; Lammich and Von René Grafunder (2005), p. 377 on the Russian law; Kremnitzer and Cohen (2005), p. 368 on the Israeli law; Ambos and Malarino (2005), p. 478 on the laws of the Latin American states.

  19. 19.

    Weigend (2003), p. 122; Cornils (2003), p. 224; Novoselec (2004), p. 49.

  20. 20.

    Besides national laws that are referred to in the text, see also other examples of Ireland, Canada, Australia, etc., which are cited in Satō (2012), pp. 772–779.

  21. 21.

    See Sect. 7.2 of Part III for detailed discussions.

  22. 22.

    For instance, Article 1(2) of the International Convention Against the Taking of Hostages, 1979 provides, “Any person who: (a) Attempts to commit an act of hostage-taking, or (b) Participates as an accomplice of anyone who commits or attempts to commit an act of hostage-taking likewise commits an offence for the purposes of this Convention.” Article 7(1)(f)–(g) of the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material, 1980, provides that an attempt and an act that constitutes participation in the crimes in question shall be made punishable by states parties. Some of the multilateral conventions on the regulation of terrorism also provide that contribution to the commission of the crimes by a group of persons acting with a common purpose is punishable.

  23. 23.

    Article 7 of the Covenant provides, “[n]o one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. In particular, no one shall be subjected without his free consent to medical or scientific experimentation.”

  24. 24.

    Byrnes (2000), p. 221.

  25. 25.

    Elements of Crimes, Article 8(2)(a)(ii)-1, 3; Article 8(2)(c)(i)-4, 3.

  26. 26.

    Elements of Crimes, Article 8(2)(a)(ii)-1, 4. See also Article 8(2)(c)(i)-4, 4.

  27. 27.

    Elements of Crimes, Article 8(2)(a)(ii)-1, 5–6; Article 8(2)(c)(i)-4, 5–6.

  28. 28.

    Kunarac, Kovac & Vukovic (AC), paras 145–148. For details, see Cassese et al. (2013), pp. 134–135.

  29. 29.

    Ibid., p. 135.

  30. 30.

    Elements of Crimes, Article 8(2)(a)(ii)-1, 2.

  31. 31.

    Elements of Crimes, Article 7(1)(f), fn. 14.

  32. 32.

    Judgment, Prosecutor v. Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovac and Zoran Vukovic, IT-96-23-T & IT-96-23/1-T, 22 February 2001, para. 485. The judgment of the Trial Chamber dealt with the definition of torture in terms of both war crimes and crimes against humanity. See ibid., para. 465.

  33. 33.

    Cassese et al. (2013), p. 134.

  34. 34.

    Guilfoyle (2016), pp. 37–39.

  35. 35.

    Resolution 3034(XXVII), Measures to Prevent International Terrorism Which Endangers or Takes Innocent Human Lives or Jeopardizes Fundamental Freedoms, and Study of the Underlying Causes of Those Forms of Terrorism and Acts of Violence Which Lie in Misery, Frustration, Grievance and Despair and Which Cause Some People to Sacrifice Human Lives, Including Their Own, in an Attempt to Effect Radical Changes, U.N. Doc., A/RES/3034(XXVII) (1972), para. 4. See also, Resolution 31/102, U.N. Doc., A/RES/31/102 (1976); Resolution 32/147, U.N. Doc., A/RES/32/147 (1977); Resolution 34/145, U.N. Doc., A/RES/34/145 (1979).

  36. 36.

    For instance, Paragraph 1 of General Assembly Resolution 48/122 (1993) on Human Rights and Terrorism “[u]nequivocally condemns all acts, methods and practices of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations, wherever and by whomever committed” (U.N. Doc., A/RES/48/122 (1993)).

  37. 37.

    For instance, 270 people were killed in the incident of the Lockerbie bombing in 1988 and more than a thousand people were injured in the incident of the World Trade Center bombing in 1993.

  38. 38.

    Other than those listed below, the relevant legal instruments include the Convention to Prevent and Punish the Acts of Terrorism Taking the Form of Crimes Against Persons and Related Extortion That are of International Significance, 1971 as adopted by the Organization of American States; European Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism, 1977; Regional Convention on Suppression of Terrorism, 1987 as adopted by the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation; ASEAN Convention on Counter-Terrorism, 2007.

  39. 39.

    Resolution 51/210, U.N.Doc., A/RES/51/210 (1996).

  40. 40.

    Report of the Ad Hoc Committee Established by General Assembly Resolution 51/210 of 17 December 1996, U.N. Doc., A/57/37 (2002), p. 17.

  41. 41.

    With respect to the concept of the separate crime of conspiracy that was adopted at the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials, see Sect. 3.7 of Part I.

  42. 42.

    See Sato (2016), pp. 93–96.

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  1. Department of International Relations, National Defense Academy of Japan, Yokosuka, Japan

    Hiromi Sato

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Sato, H. (2021). Substantive Law in Indirect Enforcement System. In: Multilayered Structures of International Criminal Law. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-83845-4_5

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