With the sensational arrest of former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in 1998, the rise to prominence of universal jurisdiction over crimes against international law seemed to be assured. The arrest of Pinochet and the ensuing proceedings before the UK courts brought universal jurisdiction into the foreground of the "fight against impunity" and the principle was read as an important complementary mechanism for international justice –one that could offer justice to victims denied an avenue by the limited jurisdiction of international criminal tribunals. Yet by the time of the International Court of Justice’s Arrest Warrant judgment four years later, the picture looked much bleaker and the principle was being read as a potential tool for politically motivated trials. This book explores the debate over universal jurisdiction in international criminal law, aiming to unpack a practice in which international lawyers continue to disagree over the concept of universal jurisdiction. Using Martti Koskenniemi’s work as a foil, this book exposes the argumentative techniques in operation in national and international adjudication since the 1990s. Drawing on overarching patterns within the debate, Aisling O’Sullivan argues that it is bounded by a tension between contrasting political preferences or positions, labelled as moralist ("ending impunity") and formalist ("avoiding abuse") and she reads the debate as a movement of hegemonic and counter-hegemonic positions that struggle for hegemonic control. However, she draws out how these positions (moralist/formalist) merge into one another and this produces a tendency towards a "middle" position that continues to prefer a particular preference (moralist or formalist). Aisling O’Sullivan then traces the transformation towards this tendency that reflects an internal split among international lawyers between building a utopia ("court of humanity") and recognizing its impossibility of being realized.

This book brings together jurisprudential debates on international criminal law, international law scholarship on the limits of state sovereignty, and applied political philosophy concerning responsibility and accountability in the context of mass political crimes and state criminality. It offers a compelling view of legal reasoning concerning accountability regimes in the Global South. No other study addresses questions of ethical dimensions of mass crimes and accountability for state criminality.

In Piracy and the Origins of Universal Jurisdiction, Mark Chadwick relates a colourful account of how and why piracy on the high seas came to be considered an international crime subject to the principle of universal jurisdiction, prosecutable by any State in any circumstances.

Universal jurisdiction is becoming a potent instrument of international law, but it is poorly understood by legal experts and remains a mystery to most public officials and citizens.

In Universal Civil Jurisdiction ¬– Which Way Forward? leading experts of public and private international law discuss the challenges that victims of international crimes face when they seek reparation in countries other than the country where the crime was committed.

This pioneering book explores the intersections of law and culture at the International Criminal Court (ICC), offering insights into how notions of culture affect the Court’s legal foundations, functioning and legitimacy, both in theory and in practice.

The doctrine of universal jurisdiction has evolved throughout modern times in the context of global criminal justice as a paramount agent of combating impunity emanating from international criminality. Sierra Leone, as a member of the international community and the United Nations, has, in recent times, been a pioneer in the progressive application and development of international criminal law in the African region. Despite this role, the country’s profile, both in terms of the incorporation and application of the doctrine of universal jurisdiction, is deficient in several major respects falling far short of its dual international obligation not to provide safe havens from justice for perpetrators of international crimes and to combat impunity from such criminogenic acts. Hence, a compelling reason for the author to write this book was to provide a seminal scholarly work on the subject articulating the existing state of the law in Sierra Leone and highlighting the deficiencies in the law and factors inhibiting the exercise of universal jurisdiction in this UN member state. It was also to propose necessary substantive and procedural law reforms in the state’s jurisprudence on the subject. The book is recommended reading for practitioners and scholars in international criminal law and related disciplines. Its accessibility is highly enhanced by relevant tables and summaries of each chapter. Justice Rosolu J.B. Thompson is Professor Emeritus of Criminal Justice Studies, Eastern Kentucky University, USA. He was a member of and Presiding Judge in Trial Chamber I of the Special Court for Sierra Leone.

This fully updated second edition of Jurisdiction in International Law examines the international law of jurisdiction, focusing on the areas of law where jurisdiction is most contentious: criminal, antitrust, securities, discovery, and international humanitarian and human rights law. Since F.A. Mann's work in the 1980s, no analytical overview has been attempted of this crucial topic in international law: prescribing the admissible geographical reach of a State's laws. This new edition includes new material on personal jurisdiction in the U.S., extraterritorial applications of human rights treaties, discussions on cyberspace, the Morrison case. Jurisdiction in International Law has been updated covering developments in sanction and tax laws, and includes further exploration on transnational tort litigation and universal civil jurisdiction. The need for such an overview has grown more pressing in recent years as the traditional framework of the law of jurisdiction, grounded in the principles of sovereignty and territoriality, has been undermined by piecemeal developments. Antitrust jurisdiction is heading in new directions, influenced by law and economics approaches; new EC rules are reshaping jurisdiction in securities law; the U.S. is arguably overreaching in the field of corporate governance law; and the universality principle has gained ground in European criminal law and U.S. tort law. Such developments have given rise to conflicts over competency that struggle to be resolved within traditional jurisdiction theory. This study proposes an innovative approach that departs from the classical solutions and advocates a general principle of international subsidiary jurisdiction. Under the new proposed rule, States would be entitled, and at times even obliged, to exercise subsidiary jurisdiction over internationally relevant situations in the interest of the international community if the State having primary jurisdiction fails to assume its responsibility.

This book offers a unique critical analysis of the legal nature, effects and limits of UN Security Council referrals to the International Criminal Court (ICC). Alexandre Skander Galand provides, for the first time, a full picture of two competing understandings of the nature of the Security Council referrals to the ICC, and their respective normative interplay with legal barriers to the exercise of universal prescriptive and adjudicative jurisdiction. The book shows that the application of the Rome Statute through a Security Council referral is inherently limited by the UN Charter as well as the Rome Statute, and can conflict with other branches of international law, including international human rights law, the law on immunities and the law of treaties. Hence, it spells out a conception of the nature and effects of Security Council referrals that responds to these limits and, in turn, informs the reader on the nature of the ICC itself.