This book provides a comprehensive explanation of what the right to a fair trial means in practice under international law. Focus on factual scenarios that practitioners may, it brings together sources and cases that define the right to a fair trial in criminal proceedings.

With the acceptance of international criminal procedure as a self-sustaining discipline and as the tribunals established to try the most serious crimes in the former Yugoslavia, Sierra Leone, and Rwanda have completed or are beginning to wind up their activities, the time is ripe for a critical evaluation of these international criminal tribunals and their legacy. By examining the due process standards embraced by the five contemporary international criminal tribunals, the author draws conclusions about how the right to a fair trial should be interpreted in international criminal law. This volume addresses key conceptual questions on fairness, including: should international criminal tribunals set the highest standards of fairness, or is it sufficient for their practice to be 'just fair enough'? To whom does the right to a fair trial attach, and can actors such as the prosecution and victims be accurately said to benefit from that right? Does fairness require the full realization of a number of guarantees owed to the accused under the statutory frameworks of international criminal tribunals, or should we instead be concerned with the fairness of the trial 'as a whole'? What is the interplay between domestic and international courts on questions of procedural fairness? What are the elements of fairness in international criminal proceedings? And what remedies are available for breaches of fair trial rights? Through an in-depth exploration of the right to a fair trial, the author concludes that international criminal tribunals have a role in setting the highest standards of due process protection in their procedures, and that in so doing, they can have a positive impact on domestic justice systems.

This book approaches the question of whether or not the court procedure at the International Criminal Court (ICC) can be regarded as fair from two angles: First, does the ICC provide a fair trial according to the accepted standards of international human rights law? Secondly, is it substantively fair so as to establish the legitimacy of the court on a sound footing? Practitioners and academics are increasingly conscious of the need for an approach to evidence which spans civil law and common law traditions, national and international law. This is what this monograph does, in meticulous detail, for the law of confrontation and disclosure.

In The Right to Be Present at Trial in International Criminal Law Caleb H. Wheeler analyses what it means for the accused to be present during international criminal trials and how that meaning has changed. This book also examines the impact that absence from trial can have on the fair trial rights of the accused and whether those rights can be upheld outside of the accused’s presence. Using primary and secondary sources, Caleb Wheeler has identified four different categories of absence and how each affects the right to be present. This permits a more nuanced understanding of how the right to be present is understood in international criminal law and how it may develop in the future.

This book examines the right to a fair trial in international criminal proceedings from a human rights perspective, drawing mainly from General Comments, Individual Communications to the Human Rights Committee and the jurisprudence of international criminal tribunals and courts. The author shows the extent to which international and hybrid criminal courts, specifically ICTY and ICTR, uphold human rights standards as laid down in the ICCPR. Even though these ad hoc tribunals have been criticized for lengthy trials, they have generously granted accused individuals enormous privileges, such as the right to self-representation, which is not possible in the ECtHR. To reconcile this situation, the author proposes that the ad hoc tribunals could adopt the approach of the ECtHR with regards to length of proceedings, while the ECtHR can learn from the ad hoc tribunals with regards to self-representation.

"In The Right to Appeal in International Criminal Law Dražan Djukić describes appeal proceedings in international criminal law and evaluates them against human rights benchmarks. While international criminal courts and tribunals mainly comply with these benchmarks, they have fallen short in certain important areas. Despite their importance to the legal process, appeal proceedings tend to receive limited attention. On the basis of benchmarks arising from international human rights law, Dražan Djukić systematically assesses the law and practice concerning appeal proceedings in international criminal law"--

This open access publication discusses exclusionary rules in different criminal justice systems. It is based on the findings of a research project in comparative law with a focus on the question of whether or not a fair trial can be secured through evidence exclusion. Part I explains the legal framework in which exclusionary rules function in six legal systems: Germany, Switzerland, People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, Singapore, and the United States. Part II is dedicated to selected issues identified as crucial for the assessment of exclusionary rules. These chapters highlight the delicate balance of interests required in the exclusion of potentially relevant information from a criminal trial and discusses possible approaches to alleviate the legal hurdles involved.

Now in its third edition, this book is the authoritative text on one of the world's most important human rights treaties, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Covenant is of universal relevance. Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1966 and in force from 1976, it commits the signatories and parties to respect the civil and political freedoms and rights of individuals. Monitored by the UN Human Rights Committee, the Covenant ratified by the majority of UN member states. The book meticulously extracts and analyzes the jurisprudence over nearly forty years of the UN Human Rights Committee, on each of the various ICCPR rights, including the right to life, the right to freedom from torture, the right of freedom of religion, the right of freedom of expression, and the right to privacy, as well as admissibility criteria under the First Optional Protocol. Key miscellaneous issues, such as reservations, derogations, and denunciations, are also thoroughly assessed. Comprehensively indexed and cross-referenced, this book offers elegant and straight-forward access to the jurisprudence of the Human Rights Committee and other UN human rights treaty bodies. Presented in a clear and illuminating manner, it will be of use to the judiciary, human rights practitioners, human rights activists, government institutions, academics, and students alike.

ÔInternational criminal justice indeed is a crowded field. But this edited collection stands well above the crowd. And it does so with dignity. Through interdisciplinary analysis, the editors skillfully turn shibboleths into intrigues. Theirs is a kaleidoscopic project that scales a gamut of issues: from courtroom discipline, to gender, to the defense, to history. Through vivid deployment of unconventional methods, this edited collection unsettles conventional wisdom. It thereby pushes law and policy toward heartier horizons.Õ Ð Mark A. Drumbl, Washington and Lee University, School of Law, US International criminal justice as a discipline throws up numerous conceptual issues, engaging disciplines such as law, politics, history, sociology and psychology, to name but a few. This book addresses themes around international criminal justice from a mixture of traditional and more radical perspectives. While law, and in particular international law, is at the heart of much of the discussion around this topic, history, sociology and politics are invariably infused and, in some aspects of international criminal justice, are predominant elements. Fundamentally the exploration concerns questions of coherence and legitimacy, which are foundational to both the content and application of the discipline, and the book charts an illuminating path through these diverse perspectives. The contributions in this book come from some of the eminent scholars and practitioners in the area, and will provide some profound insight into and an enriched understanding of international criminal justice, helping to advance the field of study. This ambitious and necessary book will appeal to academics and students of international criminal law, international criminal justice, international law, transitional justice and comparative criminal law, as well as practitioners of international criminal law.

Contains the trial proceedings of the International Criminal Court, the ICTY and the ICTR in one single volume. This book covers the procedural and evidentiary aspects of the trials before the ICC from the beginning of an investigation until the time the convict has served the sentence and it includes ICTY and ICTR precedents.