Individual Criminal Responsibility in International Law

Features a comparative perspective, analysing the concept of individual criminal responsibility in both national and international law
Critically analyses the current international rules regulating individual responsibility for international crimes and offers suggestions for policy improvements
Provides useful guidance to practitioners and legal officers involved in both the domestic and international prosecution of suspected war criminals
This book examines the concept of individual criminal responsibility for serious violations of international law, i.e. aggression, genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Such crimes are rarely committed by single individuals. Rather, international crimes generally connote a plurality of offenders, particularly in the execution of the crimes, which are often orchestrated and masterminded by individuals behind the scene of the crimes who can be termed 'intellectual perpetrators'. For a determination of individual guilt and responsibility, a fair assessment of the mutual relationships between those persons is indispensable.

By setting out how to understand and apply concepts such as joint criminal enterprise, superior responsibility, duress, and the defence of superior orders, this work provides a framework for that assessment. It does so by bringing to light the roots of these concepts, which lie not merely in earlier phases of development of international criminal law but also in domestic law and legal doctrine. The book also critically reflects on how criminal responsibility has been developed in the case law of international criminal tribunals and courts. It thus illuminates and analyses the rules on individual responsibility in international law.


Readership: Scholars and students of international criminal law; practitioners and legal advisers working in this area