The United States and the ICC: the force and farce of the legal arguments

The article outlines US dissatisfaction with the International Criminal Court (ICC), before assessing the strengths and weaknesses of US objections from the point of view of international law. It concludes that most of the concerns expressed by the United States are either overstated or legally flawed but that there is good reason to object to the abrogation, for the purposes of trial before the ICC, of the immunities conferred by international law on at least certain US personnel.     

Crisis of governance: Devising strategy to counter international organized crime

This article presents a five‐part strategy to combat International Organized Crime (IOC). First, it establishes the need for ongoing assessments: what is known and what needs to be known about IOC, as well as what opportunities exist to influence its operations? Second, the US must establish a clear‐cut and annunciated policy and strategy that draws on the resources of its many relevant agencies as well as international cooperation. Third, the US should endeavour to lead an international effort to enhance law enforcement. Fourth, law enforcement alone will be inadequate. Containing and neutralizing IOC will require disruption activities as well. Fifth, there is a need for private‐sector education programs to prevent successful criminal enterprises.     

Another look at the intent element for the war crime of terrorism

The modern basis of the war crime of terrorism may be found in the terms of article 51(2) of Additional Protocol I (1977) to the Geneva Conventions of 1949, replicated in article 13(2) of Additional Protocol II. The provision forbids attacks carried out for the ‘primary purpose of spreading terror’ among a civilian population. In view of this provision, the judges of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia have pronounced terrorism to be a crime of ‘specific intent’. In an extension of this reasoning, a Trial Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone has recently held that the crimes of enslavement and militarization of children do not qualify as terrorism, because they were not found to have been committed for the ‘primary purpose of spreading terror’. The aim of this paper is to examine the correctness and limits of the proposition that terrorism is a crime of specific intent. In the context of that inquiry, the Rome Statute is examined for what it is able to contribute to the discussion.     

Irregular Warfare and Tactical Changes: The Case of Somali Piracy

The aim of this article is to analyze the tactical behavior of Somali pirates, international naval forces, and the shipping community operating in the Gulf of Aden and the Somali Basin. To what extent has tactical behavior changed over time and can this process be understood in more theoretical terms? Our theoretical framework centers around some concepts often used in naval doctrine, discussing tactical change in terms of command and control, force, mobility, protection, intelligence, and endurance. We also evaluate this change using two tactical concepts—tactical adaptation and tactical development. The empirical data is based on statistics from the International Criminal Court-International Maritime Bureau and the EU NAVFOR Operation Atalanta, as well as interviews. We conclude that Somali piracy has unquestionably adapted their tactics to circumstances, while naval forces have increased their capacity to capture pirates and shipping to avoid pirates.     

The Deterrent Effects of the International Criminal Court: Evidence from Libya

ABSTRACT

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was designed to try the worst war criminals for crimes against humanity, genocide, and other instances of mass human suffering. By providing a permanent, international mechanism to hold perpetrators of mass human rights abuse accountable, the ICC is also meant to be a deterrent—to prevent potential genocidaires from committing systematic human rights abuses in the first place. But what if the effect is actually quite the opposite? While advocates of international justice have made conjectures about the effect of the ICC on stopping human rights abuses, the existing scholarship does not empirically test assumptions about the relationship between international criminal justice and violence. This article outlines the causal mechanisms by which the ICC could affect ongoing violence and tests these assumptions using event count models of the relationship between the ICC and the level of violence against civilians in Libya during the 2011 crisis. These analyses suggest that the ICC’s involvement in conflict does have a dampening effect on the level of mass atrocities committed. The results also call for a broad and sustained research agenda on the effect of international accountability efforts on ongoing violence.     

Developing policy on integration and re/construction in Kosova

The Gender Audit (GA) and associated reports and reviews drawn upon in this article enable an evaluation of how far the intervention processes at work in Kosova since 1999 have been inclusive of gender analysis and supportive of women's and girls' needs and interests. This assessment considers the strengths and drawbacks of various attempts to use and implement gender-sensitive projects. The GA was designed to support the emerging feminist reconstructive politics in Kosova. Its findings and recommendations tackle aspects of empowerment, equity, and opportunities, outlining some developments from community activism as well as outcomes of the international administration. By considering developments over a two-year period, it is possible to place issues of equity and opportunities in the context of change over time, with change at local and national levels linked with developing international dialogues. The article analyses local work undertaken by the Kosova Women's Network to overcome violence against women in war and domestic peace, and reviews international work engaged in by the Kosovo [sic] Women's Initiative (KWI). Many Kosovar women (of all ethnicities) do fully acknowledge their community membership, and recognise the risks involved in talking across their differences to achieve everyday security and reconciliation. International reports and reviews such as those produced in 2002 by the UN Secretary-General and UNIFEM on women, war, peace, and security, as well as the review of the KWI, allow an assessment of how dialogues are changing and what the potential impact of such change might be on policy development and implementation.     

Rescinding the signature of an international treaty: the United States and the rome statute establishing the international criminal court

The international communiry's efforts to create a global permanent penal court culminated in the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court of 1998. Although the United States of America initially signed it, it later withdrew the signature thus signalling its very strong opposition to it. This article attempts, on the one hand, to examine and analyze the US opposition from the standpoint of international relations and diplomatic law and, on the other, to determine its legaliry in the context of the law of treaties.     

Rescinding the signature of an international treaty: the United States and the rome statute establishing the international criminal court

The international communiry's efforts to create a global permanent penal court culminated in the Rome Statute establishing the International Criminal Court of 1998. Although the United States of America initially signed it, it later withdrew the signature thus signalling its very strong opposition to it. This article attempts, on the one hand, to examine and analyze the US opposition from the standpoint of international relations and diplomatic law and, on the other, to determine its legaliry in the context of the law of treaties.     

Web 2.0: a new chapter in development in practice?

This brief paper describes a range of facilities and new developments in Web-based and Internet services. While many of the applications are being used for publishing, dialogue, research, and feedback in development, the question still remains: how profoundly is the development of communications, and in particular the Internet, changing the international development community and the way in which it works?     

On our terms! How domestic elites localised the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala

Abstract

In summer 2004, an UN-sponsored international rule of law commission based on an initiative of the Guatemalan human rights community was rejected by Guatemalan political elites. In 2007, a new version, the International Commission against Impunity (CICIG), was approved by the Guatemalan Congress and has since been active in the country, supporting the modernisation of the Guatemalan judicial system and the investigation and prosecution of criminal networks. The CICIG has been hailed as part of a new generation of rule of law promotion that addresses the problems of post-conflict states. How did this change in elite support come about? Neither increased pressure from the international community nor changes in the elite groups in power can fully explain this shift. Rather, Guatemalan elites actively reshaped the commission; in addition, the human rights community reframed it to better fit the risk perceptions of the general public.     

Economics,security, and individual-level preferences for trade agreements

Empirical research on the determinants of individual-level support for trade liberalization has focused almost entirely on the economic effects of trade. Yet, international relations scholarship has long recognized that commerce also has a variety of security implications. This paper explores if and when security considerations influence individual attitudes toward trade. In this study, we ask two questions: First, to what extent do expectations about the security implications of trade affect individual-level attitudes toward trade agreements? Second, does the introduction of security concerns into the discussion of trade agreements influence how heavily individuals weigh their economic costs and benefits? We employ an original experiment embedded in a conjoint survey to investigate the relative impact of a variety of economic and security considerations on respondents’ support for trade. Our findings suggest that security information matters and undermines the appeal of some, though not all, economic arguments for trade liberalization among our respondents.     

Promoting trade through private law: Explaining international legal harmonization

A large body of research examines states’ efforts to increase international trade through public law, that is, by forming preferential trade agreements (PTAs) that lower governmental barriers to trade. Scholars, however, have overlooked another mechanism through which states seek to facilitate trade: international harmonization of private law. Underlying legal harmonization is the assumption that cross-national variation of commercial law impedes trade; by contrast, similarity of laws across countries encourages trade by reducing uncertainty and transaction costs. I argue that the harmonization of private law acts as a substitute for the public-law channel of stimulating trade: countries with limited PTA partnerships make up for this deficiency by joining initiatives for private-law harmonization. This argument is tested by analyzing the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods-one of the primary instruments of legal harmonization. Indeed, countries that are party to shallow PTAs or have few PTA partners are more likely to ratify this private-law convention. Overall, this article urges scholars of trade and international law to broaden their research agenda to include private law.     

Small States in the European Union: What Do We Know and What Would We Like to Know?

Recent developments in the European Union have created new opportunities and challenges for small member states, increasing the demand from policy-makers and diplomats for coherent and accessible analyses of the conditions and potential strategies of small states in the EU. Unfortunately, the academic literature on small states in the EU appears both diverse and fragmented: there is no agreement on how we should define a small state, what similarities we would expect to find in their foreign policies, or how they influence international relations. However, if we are to understand the challenges and possibilities currently faced by small EU member states, we need to systematise what we already know and to identify what we need to know. This article makes a modest contribution towards this goal by answering three simple questions: What is a small state in the European Union? How can we explain the behaviour of small EU member states? How do small states influence the European Union?     

国际法与中国特色大国外交（英文）

International institutions and norms, founded on universally accepted international law, have created a relatively stable external environment for China's peaceful development. Without a concerted effort to buttress established international law, it would be impossible for China to conduct its major-country diplomacy, foster a new type of international relations and build a community with a shared future for mankind.     

When States Prefer Non-Citizens Over Citizens: Conflict Over Illegal Immigration into Malaysia

Why would a state encourage illegal immigration over the opposition of its citizens? According to the theories of immigration and citizenship, we should expect exactly the opposite: that states will monitor, control, and restrict illegal immigrants' access to citizenship on behalf of its citizens, as has been the experience of most countries. I use my research on Filipino immigration to Sabah, Malaysia to show how Malaysia utilizes census practices and documentation to incorporate an illegal immigrant population from the Philippines. Illegal immigrants play an electoral role in Sabah because of the loosely institutionalized nature of citizenship, a feature common to many other developing countries. Our examination of Malaysia reveals several elements of illegal immigration and citizenship that are common to migratory flows in other developing countries. I conclude by showing how this case is generalizable and what it tells us about illegal immigrant participation in the international system.     

The Road from Dayton to Brussels? The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the Politics of War Crimes in Bosnia

Abstract

The tenth anniversary of the massacre of 7–8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995 set in stark relief the continuing salience of war crimes in the political life of Bosnia and Herzegovina. With the country now firmly on a path ‘from Dayton to Brussels’, dealing with the war crimes legacy is critical to its future development. Cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is a non-negotiable condition for further progress toward membership of the European Union and NATO's Partnership for Peace, while in the long-term, dealing with the legacy of war crimes is crucial to establishing lasting peace in Bosnia and in the region. This article examines the potential contribution of the ICTY to the restoration of peace in Bosnia in the context of debates about the role of post-conflict justice in societies in transition from war to peace and in the context of the international community's use of the war crimes issues as a political bargaining tool. It will be argued that the two are inextricably linked as short-term pragmatic advantages brought by cooperation work in tandem with longer-term goals of peace and reconciliation.     

国际安全态势感知指数解析(1995-2015)

国际安全无处不在,无时不在。如何准确地衡量我们所处的国际安全环境的好坏?如何评估各国的国际安全状态?由国际关系学院《国际安全研究》编辑部和对外经济贸易大学国际关系学院大数据国际关系研究中心联合研究开发的《国际安全态势感知指数2016》(IISSA)即是一种有效的量化工具,让我们可以像利用"空气指数"(AQI)帮助我们了解空气质量一样,利用"国际安全态势感知指数2016",可以帮助我们从全球、大洲、区域、国别四个层次感性地了解当今世界的国际安全状况。对该指数的研究可以得出四个结论:从全球层面来看,长期的国际安全状况较差,中期的国际安全状况虽有所改善,但短期状况又呈现负面化;从大洲层面来看,欧洲地区国际安全态势最好,大洋洲次之,亚洲和非洲相对较差;从区域层面来看,可以发现与该区域有关的国际热点问题是影响该区域国际安全态势的重要因素;从国别层面来看,新西兰、瑞士和瑞典是国际安全感最好的三个国家,阿富汗、叙利亚和巴基斯坦是安全感最差的三个国家,而在世界主要大国中,欧洲核心大国(英、法、德)的国际安全态势最佳,中国次之。     

What price justice? On the evolving notion of ‘right to fair trial’ from Nuremberg to The Hague

Following the Second World War, evolving notions of human rights have been met by evolving understandings of rights that should be afforded the accused in judicial processes. The following considers this evolution in proceedings stretching from Nuremberg to The Hague, as a struggle between forces that have given birth to each successive stage in international criminal justice, as well as of forces that have grounded rights of defence as advancing the cause of justice itself. Indeed, while notions of ‘right to fair trial’ and ‘equality of arms’ suffer from conflicted understandings over what consists in justice, and from conflicting interests over what powers should be afforded parties in the judicial process, this article suggests that the primacy afforded rights of the accused reflects, most evidently in the International Criminal Court, the growing acceptance of liberal democratic notions that justice is most clearly founded not on the treatment of victims, but on the treatment afforded those who mistreat others.     

What wars and ‘war bodies’ know about international relations

What happens when the ‘international’ as a distinct social space is approached from the perspective of war rather than war from the perspective of the ‘international’? Tarak Barkawi's question (Millennium, 39:3, 2011, 701–706) is best answered by attempts to understand war not as part of inter/intra-state relations but as a socio-cultural, trans-historical institution that impacts on the ‘everyday’ lives of men, women and children. In this article I argue that war is not a disruption of the ‘everyday’, an abstraction that has a definite beginning and end, something we enter into and exit. Instead, it can be captured in daily and mundane lived experiences of people and in powerful emotions that constitute ‘self’, community and the ‘other.’ Drawing upon my research on wars in South Asia, I particularly reflect on how war shapes the banal and the fervent and how cultural and political narratives of ‘war bodies’ perform the ‘international’ in a variety of ways. Most significantly I want to draw attention to how international relations as a scholarly discipline is so deeply engaged with war and yet seems to have an estranged relationship with it.     

A Nationalist's View of Lawfare

Many lawyers, military legalists, scholars, and policymakers continue to march the United States down the road to full membership in the International Criminal Court (ICC). This article explores the darker side of such a trek, from both legal and strategy perspectives, by examining three important fracture points that make joining the ICC irreconcilable with our Constitutionally-based republican form of government: Constitutionally protected individual rights; the American legal notion of the individual right of self-defense, and the influence of Sharia law.