Developing Contextualized Rationales for Sentencing in International Criminal Trials: A Plea for Empirical Research

The aim of this article is to illustrate how the pervading ideologyof retributivism has affected the norms and practice of sentencingin international criminal trials. It examines the nature andoperation of international sentencing law and procedure andthe parameters set for the exercise of discretionary power,suggesting how these militate against the development of moreconstructive rationales for punishment because of their continuedemphasis on principles of consistency and proportionality. Itis argued that the rationales for international sentencing needto engage more with the aspirations for justice of victims andpost-conflict societies. This would suggest a re-evaluationof punishment and a change in the sentencing practices of internationalcriminal tribunals. The article concludes that comparative contextualanalysis could provide important insights, which would be ofgreat assistance for international sentencing.     

国家刑罚权与检察职能的关系

现代检察制度是随着国家将刑罚权分解并由不同国家机关承担侦查、起诉与审判职能而产生与发展起来的,是法治思想的产物。刑事法治的要旨在于对国家刑罚权进行限制以保障公民个体的权利。我国法治实践表明,检察机关的根本任务应从侧重刑罚的保护功能(惩治犯罪)向刑罚保护功能和保障功能(保障人权)并举,维护国家刑罚权良性运行的轨道转变,这不仅是刑事司法规律对检察权运行的本质要求,也是"法律监督"属性在刑事司法领域的本质含义和具体体现。     

Student perceptions of hate crimes

Estimates indicate hate crimes are a growing concern in the United States. This paper addresses how criminal justice students perceive victims of hate crimes. Survey findings show subjects are less likely to define certain groups of people as victims of hate crimes. Suggestions are made as to how criminal justice departments can heighten awareness of hate crime victims, multiculturalism, and gender diversity among criminal justice students.     

Penal ideology, sentencing and the legitimacy of trial justice

The paper explores the link between penal ideology and international trial justice from the perspective of sentencing. The argument is based on the premise that the perceived legitimacy of punishment is directly related to effective governance in criminal justice. As such, loss of faith, or lack of moral empathy by individuals and communities with the ideologies, processes and outcomes of punishment compromises the ability of criminal trials to function effectively in maintaining the ‘rule of law’. The paper argues that more emphasis should be given explaining the moral foundations that underpin perceptions of ‘justice’ in sociological accounts of the ‘reality’ of sentencing, and proposes an analytical framework for conceptualising this. Adopting this approach, the paper draws on examples from national and international criminal justice to illustrate how the hegemony of penal ideology and its implementation compromises the ability of sentencing outcomes to resonate with the trial‘s ‘relevant audience’. The paper then focuses on how penal ideology influences the construction of the factual basis for sentencing in international criminal trials, and considers the consequences of this for the perceived ‘legitimacy’ of international trial justice.     

Secondary Victimization of Crime Victims by Criminal Proceedings

It is conceivable that criminal proceedings cause psychological harm to the crime victims involved, that is, cause secondary victimization. To investigate this hypothesis, negative and positive effects of criminal proceedings were investigated, as perceived by 137 victims of violent crimes who were involved in trials several years previously. Trial outcome and procedure variables were measured as potential causes of secondary victimization. Results show a high proportion of victims reporting overall negative effects. Powerful predictors were outcome satisfaction and procedural justice, but not subjective punishment severity, interactional justice, and psychological stress by criminal proceedings. The practical implications of the results pertain to whether victims should be advised to report the crime to the police or not, and to appropriate prevention and intervention measures of secondary victimization by criminal proceedings.     

Overview of Language Rights in the International Criminal Law Sentencing Models

This paper examines the ‘deep-end’ of the international justice process—the incarceration of persons convicted in specially constituted international criminal tribunals and courts for gross violations of human rights, genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes with a focus on language rights of such prisoners who are commonly serving sentences in foreign prisons. The punishment phase of the international justice process and its effects are not easily quantifiable and have been largely hidden from view. Although international criminal law asserts that equal treatment before the law requires that there be no significant disparity in punishment regimes from one sentence-enforcing country to another, comparative penology shows that there are considerable differences in the conditions of confinement and the nature of correctional services in the prison systems of different countries. This has a direct impact on post-sentence procedural and rehabilitation rights of which language rights from a key part. In this specific context, and drawing from existing literature, the paper therefore examines the extent to which enforcement practice conforms to the ideal of equal treatment espoused by the tribunals.     

International Criminal Courts and Political Reconciliation

In A Moral Theory of Political Reconciliation, Colleen Murphy devotes a full chapter to arguing that international criminal trials make significant contributions to political reconciliation within post-conflict and transitional societies. While she is right to claim that these trials serve an important function, I take issue with her with respect to what that important function is. Whereas Murphy focuses on the contributions international criminal prosecutions might make to political reconciliation within the borders of transitional societies, I claim instead that their primary function is to restore order at the international level and to dispense justice. The aims of justice are not always consistent with the aims of reconciliation. Moreover, several features of international criminal trials should give us pause with respect even to how well, in fact, they manage to serve the ends of international justice.     

Gorr on actus reus

Advances in forensic techniques have expanded the temporal horizon of criminal investigations, facilitating investigation of historic crimes that would previously have been considered unsolvable. Public enthusiasm for pursuing historic crimes is exemplified by recent high-profile trials of celebrities accused of historic sexual offences. These circumstances give new urgency to the question of how we should decide which historic offences to investigate. A satisfactory answer must take into account the ways in which the passage of time can erode the benefits of criminal investigation, the costs associated with investigating old crimes, and the need to prioritize investigations in the face of limited police resources. This article emphasizes the first of these factors. It begins by considering the moral goals of a criminal justice system and the contribution of criminal investigations to the achievement of these goals, distinguishing between contributions that depend on further steps in the criminal justice process, such as prosecution and punishment, and contributions that can have value independently of these further steps. Using this important distinction, the article then examines a range of factors that relate the passage of time to criminal justice goals, including the seriousness of the crime; deterioration of evidence; death of the offender, victim and others affected by the crime; and diminished psychological connectedness between those affected by the crime and their current selves. While the range and non-uniformity of relevant factors preclude a simple answer to the question of when historic crimes should be investigated and call instead for case-by-case assessment, we find that the analysis does support some general conclusions that can guide such an assessment.     

The Ethics of Plea Bargaining in International Criminal Trials

The paper argues that contemporary theoretical and philosophical concerns relating to the practice of plea bargaining in international trials for crimes such as genocide should be seen in the broader context of the perceived legitimacy of international trial justice. The paper questions the capacity of international trial structures to deliver a form of truth which contributes to justice suggesting that the legitimacy of the truth available is conditioned by ideology and normative practice. The paper suggests that the key to transforming international trial justice lies in promoting the link between trial ideology and the perceived moral legitimacy of its outcomes through the exercise of judicial discretionary power. Ralph Henham is Professor of Criminal Justice, Nottingham Law School, Nottingham Trent University.     

Crimes Against Humanity and the Limits of International Criminal Law

Crimes against humanity are supposed to have a collective dimension with respect both to their victims and their perpetrators. According to the orthodox view, these crimes can be committed by individuals against individuals, but only in the context of a widespread or systematic attack against the group to which the victims belong. In this paper I offer a new conception of crimes against humanity and a new justification for their international prosecution. This conception has important implications as to which crimes can be justifiably prosecuted and punished by the international community. I contend that the scope of the area of international criminal justice that deals with basic human rights violations should be wider than is currently acknowledged, in that it should include some individual violations of human rights, rather than only violations that have a collective dimension.     

The International Criminal Court and Africa: Exemplary Justice

This is a theoretical and empirical investigation into the causal link (if any) between international criminal trials and preventing violence through exemplary prosecutions. Specifically how do representative trials of persons accused of having the greatest responsibility for the most serious crimes of concern to the international community as a whole, supposedly bind recurrent violence? The argument pursued is that by using an accused as an example, a court engages in an indirect and uncertain substitution of personal rights for social harmony and order. These prosecutions combine a peculiar rhetoric, logic and aesthetic, all which substitute the responsibilities for a society in general to a particular individual in order to redeem that society by transferring its communal responsibility onto the individual punished as a form of atonement or expiation. International and domestic trials, as well as truth and reconciliation commissions, are part of a suite of options addressing communal mass violence that can work in tandem. However, because those convicted do not have a monopoly on criminality, nor do those merely reconciled have a monopoly on virtue, exemplification through punishment only targets a few on behalf of the many. Indeed such a redemptively sacrificial economy distinguishes legal justice from mere vengeance.     

The Shifting Sands of Punishment in China in the Era of “Harmonious Society”

This article about the politics of punishment in China today follows some of the political machinations involved in the development of a new policy called “Balancing Leniency and Severity.” It treats this new policy as an exemplar of how politics works in the Hu Jintao era to change the way crimes are addressed in judicial decision making. This paper underscores the important ways in which political ideology informs criminal justice policy and practice in China. It examines a number of stages of development within the last decade during which Balancing Leniency and Severity has emerged as a foundational criminal justice policy.     

刑事诉讼法再修改之基本理念——兼及若干基本原则之修改

刑事诉讼法的修改是大势所趋 ,势在必行 ,其目标应力求将刑事诉讼法修改成为一部符合现代民主法治国家要求、与国际刑事司法准则相衔接、符合中国国情、形式完备的法典。为此必须更新理念 :应坚持惩罚犯罪与保障人权相结合 ;实体公正与程序公正并重 ;客观真实与法律真实相结合 ;公正优先并兼顾效率的原则     

经济全球化与跨国犯罪的防治对策

经济全球化的同时也带来犯罪问题的全球化。当前,跨国犯罪问题日趋突出,国家之间如何加强司法协助共同打击跨国犯罪显得非常迫切。跨国犯罪具有跨国性、有组织性、犯罪手段多样性的特点,因此遏制跨国犯罪必须进行国际司法协助,这就要求国家间在立法、相互交流信息情报、引渡跨国犯罪罪犯、监控追缴赃款赃物上进行合作。目前国际社会在打击跨国犯罪上还存在立法不够完善,自我保护意识太强,反洗钱机制不完善,有政治分岐和种族偏见等问题。各国应该发挥国际合作精神,采取措施解决以上问题,为经济全球化提供一个安全的国际环境。     

犯罪控制的惩罚主义及其效果

1979年以来我国刑事立法和司法忽视或遗忘了刑法的特征与内在价值,高估了刑法影响人的行为的可能性,刑法一直保持着在功能化方向上的惯性,刑罚结构和刑罚适用面临着重刑主义的突出问题。我国的犯罪控制存在着惩罚主义的结构特征,然而惩罚主义的意愿和努力,并没能有效遏制犯罪规模和犯罪的总体严重程度迅猛发展的势头。在刑事政策和刑罚体系的主导思想没有做出重大调整前,刑罚轻缓化的改革仍然任重道远。     

论修复性司法模式

与重惩罚的传统刑事司法模式不同,修复性司法模式,强调的是如何对犯罪造成的损害进行修复,而非单纯惩罚犯罪人。修复性司法作为一种刑事司法改革运动与一种刑事司法理念,还不是一个完全成熟的理论。因此,其内涵关系真实性是否存在还需要进一步检验,同样,修复性司法在我国能否进入实务过程似乎还有一段困难的路要走,仍有待加强实证研究。     

国际刑事司法协助与引渡问题探析

刑事司法协助是国家关系的重要内容,是一国司法权的有效域外延伸,具有重要的外交价值和司法价值。开展刑事司法协助问题的研究,特别是建立我国现代引渡制度,对于打击跨国犯罪、引渡跨国犯罪、追究逃窜到国外罪犯的刑事责任、监控追缴赃款赃物等方面具有重要意义。目前,在我国现存的各种法律规范以及与外国签订的司法协助协定之中,缺乏切实可行的措施。为此,制定切实可行的引渡制度仍是任重而道远的法制任务。     

Stateless Crimes,Legitimacy, and International Criminal Law: The Case of Organ Trafficking

Organ trafficking and trafficking in persons for the purpose of organ transplantation are recognized as significant international problems. Yet these forms of trafficking are largely left out of international criminal law regimes and to some extent of domestic criminal law regimes as well. Trafficking of organs or persons for their organs does not come within the jurisdiction of the ICC, except in very special cases such as when conducted in a manner that conforms to the definitions of genocide or crimes against humanity. Although the United States Code characterizes trafficking as “a transnational crime with national implications,” (22 U.S.C. § 7101(b)(24) (2010)), trafficking is rarely prosecuted in domestic courts. It has thus functioned in practice largely as what might be judged a “stateless” offense, out of the purview of both international and national courts. Yet these forms of organ trafficking remain widespread—and devastating to those who are its victims. In this article, we begin by describing what is known about the extent of organ trafficking and trafficking in persons for the purpose of removal of organs. We then critically evaluate how and why such trafficking has remained largely unaddressed by both international and domestic criminal law regimes. This state of affairs, we argue, presents a missed chance for developing the legitimacy of international criminal law and an illustration of how far current international legal institutions remain from ideal justice.     

我国反腐败刑事立法之犯罪化与轻刑化问题研究

在国际刑事法律公约的订立和各国刑事立法过程中，犯罪化和非犯罪化一直是刑事政策和刑事立法的基本问题。腐败行为犯罪化的意义还在于，随着国际和国内反腐败斗争的不断深入，对公职人员的廉洁性、廉政性的要求越来越高，不廉洁和不廉政行为范围更加扩大，那些原来属于职业道德规范规制的对象，随着人们对这些腐败行为的犯罪化的立法要求和呼声的高涨，这些行为便有可能上升为刑事法律规制的对象。而轻刑化是指对于犯罪的处罚倾向于用较轻的刑罚取代较重刑罚处罚的刑：事政策措施，它表现为用较轻的刑种（如监禁或有期徒刑）取代较重的刑种（如死刑或无期徒刑），或者在同一刑种中用较轻的处罚（如3年以下轻的刑期）取代较重的处罚（如10年以上重的刑期），甚至包括本应用剥夺自由的刑罚取而代之用剥夺财产刑（如没收财产或罚金）和资格刑（如剥夺政治权利）的刑罚措施惩治腐败犯罪。在国际上，轻刑化作为国际刑事立法和司法的趋势，正日益引起各国的重视。从表面上看，犯罪化和轻刑化是两种的对立的刑事政策，但实际上，这两者是可以兼容并蓄的。因此，对腐败犯罪行为的犯罪化与对该行为在处罚上的轻刑化并不矛盾，两者在理论与实践上都可以达到高度的统一。     

论恐怖主义犯罪的惩治及我国立法的发展完善

恐怖主义 (terrorism)是当今国际社会普遍关注的焦点问题之一 ,恐怖主义罪行的惩治问题也愈加成为国际社会与世界各国关注的热点。随着国际政治、经济和文化交流的发展 ,恐怖主义犯罪的规模不断扩大 ,地域也逐渐走出国界、区域 ,而逐渐显现出其国际性、跨国性、有组织性、多样性及危害结果严重等特征 ,同时映衬出国际社会原有惩治恐怖主义犯罪措施的匮乏。如何有效地惩治恐怖主义犯罪已经成为当今国际社会与各国刑事立法迫切需要解决的课题 ,也是目前学界亟待深入研讨的问题。本文拟从恐怖主义犯罪的概念、本质、惩治措施等方面分析恐怖主义犯罪惩治的基础理论及法律对策 ,并结合我国刑法相关规定阐述惩治恐怖主义犯罪的基础模式。