This course aims to examine the models and methods of international accountability for crimes involving massive human rights violations; it will review the nature, character and legal elements of the crimes of genocide, serious war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression. Students will review the history of international sanctioning bodies and identify jurisdictional constraints and other historical innovations and impediments. The course aims to analyze contemporary international criminal law initiatives in relation to principles of public international law and domestic state practice with regard to both theory and practical applications. Students will be called upon to consider issues such as command responsibility, complementarity jurisdiction, the general principles of criminal law, and the interchange between political power and the judicial process in the international arena. Students will also explore the jurisprudential mix (common law, civil law, international law, domestic law) utilized by the international criminal tribunals.

On completing the course students should understand the nature of vertical international law, the different mechanisms for the trial of international crimes and the constitutive documents that control them, the substantive offenses under international law and the rules and jurisprudence governing the international criminal law bodies. Moreover, students should be able to identify the political ramifications of the international criminal law legal framework and apply what they have learned to modern developments and practices in international relations today.

This course will examine the doctrine of universal jurisdiction and consider the impact, if any, of the Regina v Bartles case in the UK. It will examine the constitutive documents of the ad hoc Tribunals for former Yugoslavia and Rwanda as well as those documents creating the international hybrid tribunals of Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Lebanon, and East Timor. The course will conduct a detailed analysis of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and its Rules of Procedure and Evidence. The course will also review some of the leading cases in the international tribunals and identify developing trends in international criminal law.

Examination: The use of Generative AI tools is not allowed.

To enable the full benefit to be obtained from this course, students should attend all of the classes and activities.

Applicable to students admitted from Semester A 2022/23 to Summer Term 2024

Students must obtain a minimum mark of 50% in examination and an overall mark of 50% in order to pass the course.

Applicable to students admitted before Semester A 2022/23 and in Semester A 2024/25 & thereafter

Students must obtain a minimum mark of 40% in examination and an overall mark of 40% in order to pass the course.

Assessment will be formative to enable students to demonstrate their capacity to understand, analyse and apply rules and principles and summative to assess ability to synthesise primary and secondary material to solve novel problems.