International criminal law

ICC

Domestic criminal courts (majority of cases)

International actors, but we also have domestic law enforcement agencies. 

Could also say, the interests that they try to protect, makes them international. (Rechtsgut)

War crimes, historically an affair between states. So the rules governing war could only be of international nature. After the 2 WW war was banned. How to apply the rules on armed conflict inside of states but not between states. 

Problematic because terrorism is not clearly defined. One mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter

International treaties

International customary law 

Acts of international organizations

Two elements,

1. State practice and

2. The opinual that those rules are followed because the constitute law and are legally binding.

Never formally accepted rules. Problem with “nulla poena sine lege". How far does this principle work anyways, because every legal text has to be interpreted,

He sais we always have some leagal stuff building up without real content. Then something happens and we really fill these norms with contents. For example treaty of Versaille, WW 2 and then the Nürnberg trials. 

Two crutial events for fixing international customary law in the field international criminal law. Nürnberg and ad hoc tribunals for Jugoslawia and Ruanda. There we see, that there are some connections between treatylaw and international customary law, because the things in treaties evolve into customary law. For example the convention of genocide made sure, that the idea that genocide should be punishable found the way into international customary law. 

state dimension 

not very effective because nearly never all states are helping. also more against the civilian population. if the dictator does not care about them, not effective. War sanctions nearly never possible because of the veto right in the security council. 

personal dimension

Not very effective either, only possible to act outside of the country. so only limiting there possible range of movement. 

The statuts of the ad hoc tribunals have been UN-Acts. 

But the tribunals themselves give themselves some rules. For example the RPE (Rules of procedure and evidence). These rules shape the work of those tribunals