The International Criminal Court : Legal, Policy, and Political Challenges / edited by Richard H. Steinberg.

Format:

Book

Contributor:

Steinberg, Richard H., editor.

Series:

Human Rights and Humanitarian Law E-Books Online, Collection 2026.

Human Rights and Humanitarian Law E-Books Online, Collection 2026

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Human rights.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (520 pages) : illustrations.

Edition:

1st ed.

Other Title:

Legal, Policy, and Political Challenges

Place of Publication:

Leiden ; Boston : Brill | Nijhoff, 2025.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The International Criminal Court: Legal, Policy, and Political Challenges is a collection of essays by prominent international criminal law and policy commentators, responsive to questions of interest to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. Topics include: - Superior Responsibility after the Bemba Appeals Judgment - Completion Strategies for Situations under Investigation - The Emerging Use of Cyber Evidence and Open Source Material at the ICC - U.S. Sanctions on the Court: Support, Opposition, and Off-Ramps - The Gravity Threshold - Cyber Operations and Cyberwarfare under the Rome Statute - Non-Western Law at the ICC: What Is Its Place? - Decentralized Accountability: ICC Engagement with State Courts and Regional Entities

Contents:

Intro

Half Title Page

Title Page

Copyright Page

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Notes on Contributors

Part 1 Superior Responsibility after Bemba

Introduction to Part 1

Chapter 1 Weakening Command Responsibility Doctrine? The Bemba Appeals Judgment

Chapter 2 Bemba's Legacy: Motivations and Geographic Remoteness in Article 28 Liability

1 Introduction

2 A Commander's Motivations

3 Remoteness

4 A Wider Point

5 Conclusion

Chapter 3 Bemba's Balance: Aligning the Rome Statute with Military Realities

2 The Nature of Command

3 The Importance of OPCON

4 Implications for the Future

5 A Few Thoughts on Causation in the Context of Article 28

Chapter 4 The Bemba Acquittal: A Setback for Superior Responsibility under Article 28

2 Analysis

3 Recommendations and Conclusion

Chapter 5 "Judicial-Speculation-Made-Law": More Thoughts about the Acquittal of Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo

Part 2 Completion Strategies for Situations under Investigation

Introduction to Part 2

Chapter 6 It's a Journey, Not a Destination: Tailored Completion Strategies for ICC Situations under Investigation

Chapter 7 Articulating a Completion Strategy for Each Situation and Catalyzing Domestic Criminal Justice

1 Why Completion Strategies Are Essential

2 Sources of Guidance on Exit

3 Completion as Opportunity

Chapter 8 Ongoing Vigilance: The Case for Keeping Investigations Open Indefinitely

2 Why Close?

3 Advantages of Closing

4 Considerations for Closure

4.1 Determining Closure

4.2 Planning Closure

Chapter 9 ICC Completion Strategy and Prosecutorial Policy: Two Sides of the Same Coin

Chapter 10 Prioritizing Investigations Is Key.

Part 3 The Emerging Use of Cyber Evidence and Open Source Material at the ICC

Introduction to Part 3

Chapter 11 Agility and Openness: Keys to the ICC's Effective Use of Digital Evidence

Chapter 12 Deepfakes and Digital Trust: Authenticating Open Source Evidence

2 Open Source Evidence at the ICC

3 Authentication of Open Source Evidence

4 Deepfake Technologies

Chapter 13 Digital Video Evidence: Opportunities and Imperatives for the ICC

2 What Is Digital and Open Source Evidence and Who Creates It?

3 How Is Digital Evidence Collected and Stored?

4 The Role of Civil Society in Digital Evidence

4.1 Civil Society Organizations Working in the Field to Collect Documentation and Evidence Collection in Collaboration with Investigators and Legal Experts

4.2 Civil Society Organizations Working on Aggregation, Authentication, (Emergency) Preservation and Analysis in Collaboration with Legal and Technology Experts and Other Relevant Stakeholders Working in the Justice and Accountability Space

4.3 Organizations Supporting Documentation and Evidence Collection on a Local Capacity Through Training and Resources

4.4 Case Study: Hasiam Omar Sakhanh

4.5 Challenges and Key Considerations for Working with Digital Video Evidence from Closed and Open Sources

5 Ethics, Security, and Privacy

6 Discovering Digital Evidence

7 Permanence and Availability of Digital Evidence

8 Authentication: Reliability

9 Managing and Preserving Digital Evidence

10 Conclusion

Chapter 14 Cyber Evidence Repositories: Filling Critical Gaps for ICC Investigations

2 History

3 Barriers to Securing Digital Content and Opportunities for Addressing Those Barriers

4 What's Needed Next

Chapter 15 The Fourth Industrial Revolution Comes to The Hague.

1 Introduction

2 "Finding a Needle in a Pile of Needles"

3 Actors and Action in the Field

4 New Technologies and Techniques

Part 4 U.S. Sanctions on the Court: Support, Opposition, and Off-Ramps

Introduction to Part 4

Chapter 16 What President Biden and the ICC Prosecutor Should Do to End the United States-ICC Conflict

Chapter 17 Trump's Sanctions on the International Criminal Court: Inappropriate, Ineffective, and Dangerous

1 From a War in Afghanistan to U.S. Sanctions on the ICC

2 Sanctions Strike at the Court and the Rule of Law

3 A National Emergency… Really?

4 Empty Threats, Bad Strategy

5 Other, Better Tools

6 A New Administration, a New Approach?

Chapter 18 Rescinding the ICC Sanctions and Signaling America's Commitment to the Rule of Law

2 Background: Executive Orders under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act

3 The Executive Order Is Illegal

4 The Executive Order Undermines U.S. Interests, Including the Rule of Law

Chapter 19 Rescinding icc Prosecutor's "Designation" as Part of a Broader Strategy

1 The Facts

2 The Protection to U.S. Officers Provided by Previous Presidents

3 The Failure of the Expert Community to Propose New Solutions

4 Exploring Alternatives

5 The ICC Admissibility of the Cases against U.S. Personnel

6 Conclusion

Chapter 20 The ICC: A Political Institution That Promotes Double Standards

Part 5 The Gravity Threshold

Introduction to Part 5

Chapter 21 The Aperture of the ICC: More than Just the Issue of Gravity

1 How Does the Rome Statute Set the Aperture?

1.1 Jurisdiction

1.2 Admissibility

2 Concerns about the Aperture

3 Admissibility and Jurisdiction in Practice

3.1 The Gravity Threshold

3.2 Complementarity and the Interests of Justice

3.2.1 Complementarity.

3.2.2 Interests of Justice

4 Other Ways in Which the Aperture Opening Is Wide

4.1 Contextual Factors

4.2 Article 53 Standard of Proof for Commencing an Investigation

4.3 The "Situation as a Whole" Principle

5 Observations

Chapter 22 Defining Gravity: The ICC's Struggle to Establish Selection Criteria

2 Background

3 Policy Paper on Case Selection and Prioritisation

4 Prosecutor's Discretion

5 Case Selection Document

Chapter 23 Gravity of Crimes by Low-Ranking Perpetrators and Peacekeepers

2 Who Is "Most Responsible"?

3 War Crimes by Peacekeepers: Grave Enough for ICC Jurisdiction

Chapter 24 Higher Gravity Threshold? A Plea for Caution

2 Gravity in Context: A Plea for Caution

3 Risks and Dilemmas of a Higher Gravity Threshold in the Selection of Situations

3.1 Dynamic Nature of Situations

3.2 Legal Black Holes and Blind Spots

3.3 Problems of Judicial Assessment

3.4 Exclusionary Effects

4 Risks and Dilemmas of a Higher Gravity Threshold in the Selection of Cases

5 Some Alternative Paths

5.1 Articulating Dilemmas: Less Rather than More Gravity

5.2 Better Discursive Structures

5.3 Political Structures

Chapter 25 Assessing Gravity: Should the ICC ConsidertheImpact of Crimes on theInternational Community?

2 The Collapse of Venezuela

3 Gravity and the Crimes' Impact on Victims

4 Finding Middle Ground: From Social Alarm to an Objective Assessment of the Consequences for Other States

Part 6 Cyber Operations and Cyberwarfare under the Rome Statute

Introduction to Part 6

Chapter 26 Cyber Attacks as International Crimes under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court?

Introduction

1 Preliminary Conceptual Remarks: Cyber Operations and Cyber Warfare.

2 Cyber Attacks as "Attacks" due to Their Effects

3 Cyber Attacks as International Crimes

3.1 War Crimes (Article 8 of the Rome Statute)

3.2 Other International Core Crimes

4 Individual Criminal Responsibility

Chapter 27 Cyber Behavior: Gray Areas and Attribution Difficulties

2 Clear Cases

3 The Gray Zone

4 Efforts at More Clarity

5 The Attribution Problem

Chapter 28 Cyber Operations, Cyberwarfare, and the Crime of Aggression

2 Does the Crime of Aggression Apply to Cyber Operations?

3 When Does a Cyber Operation Constitute a "Crime of Aggression"?

4 Conclusion

Chapter 29 When Cyber Operations Constitute War Crimes Under the Rome Statute

2 The Cyber Operation Must Be Conducted in the Context of and in Association with an Armed Conflict

3 The Cyber Operation Must Be Committed on the Territory or by a National of an ICC State Party

4 The Cyber Operation Must Involve the Elements of the ICC War Crimes

5 The Case Involving the Cyber Operation Must Be Sufficiently Grave

5.1 Scale

5.2 Nature

5.3 Manner of Commission

5.4 Impact

Chapter 30 Amending the Rome Statute to Cover Cyberwarfare as Aggression

2 Revising the Definition of the "Crime of Aggression"

3 Adding Cyber Measures as an Act of Aggression

Part 7 Non-Western Law at the ICC: What Is Its Place?

Introduction to Part 7

Chapter 31 The International Criminal Court, Islamic Legal Tradition, and the Arab World: Quo Vadis?

2 Islam, Arab States, and the Rome Statute

3 An Overview of the Relationship between the Arab World and the ICC

4 Overcoming the Residual Barriers to Universal Acceptance of ICL

Chapter 32 Beyond Prosecution: Lessons for the ICC from Regional Human Rights Systems.

Chapter 33 Inter-jurisdictional Dialogue with Non-Western Traditions.

Notes:

Description based on print version record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

90-04-68675-4

OCLC:

1543042802

Publisher Number:

10.1163/9789004686755 DOI