Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-grxwn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-13T05:38:13.460Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

International Justice and Judicial Decision Making at the Appellate Level

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2022

James Meernik
James Meernik*
Affiliation:
University of North Texas
*
Contact the author at [email protected].
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

International law is an evolving body of jurisprudence characterized by ambiguities, gaps, and lack of precedent. I argue that the propensity of the prosecution or the defense to emerge victorious on issues on appeal will depend on the legal issues they raise. I introduce a new database on the outcomes of every extant appeal filed by both the prosecution and the defense at the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. I find that the defense is more often likely to win on appeal when it appeals issues that are dynamic and inchoate in international law.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Law and Courts , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , Fall 2016 , pp. 313 - 338
Copyright
© 2016 by the Law and Courts Organized Section of the American Political Science Association. All rights reserved.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

The author will make the data available on request for replication purposes upon publication (September 2016). The data will be available from the author for all other purposes 1 year after the print publication of the article.

References

Bassiouni, Cherif. 2008. International Criminal Law. Vol. 3: International Enforcement. 3rd ed. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff.Google Scholar
Borda, Aldo Zammit. 2013. “Precedent in International Criminal Courts and Tribunals.” Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law 2:287–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damaska, Mirjan. 2011. “The Competing Visions of Fairness: The Basic Choice for International Criminal Tribunals.” North Carolina Journal of International Law and Commercial Regulation 36:365–87.Google Scholar
Danner, Allison Marston, and Martinez, Jenny S. 2005. “Guilty Associations: Joint Criminal Enterprise, Command Responsibility, and the Development of International Criminal Law.” California Law Review 93:75–170.Google Scholar
Darcy, Shane, and Powderly, Joseph. 2010. Judicial Creativity at the International Criminal Tribunals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DeGuzman, Margaret. 2012. “How Serious Are International Crimes? The Gravity Problem in International Criminal Law.” Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 51:18–68.Google Scholar
Drumbl, Mark A. 2007. Atrocity, Punishment and International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ewald, Uwe. 2010. “‘Predictably Irrational’—International Sentencing and Its Discourse against the Backdrop of Preliminary Empirical Findings on ICTY Sentencing Practices.” International Criminal Law Review 10:365–402.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fleming, Mark. 2002. “Appellate Review in the International Criminal Tribunals.” Texas International Law Journal 37:111–56.Google Scholar
Freeland, Steven. 2015. “Judicial Decision Making in International Criminal Courts: Effective Justice?” Griffith Journal of Law and Human Dignity 3:59–85.Google Scholar
Gallant, Kenneth S. 2003. “Politics, Theory and Institutions: Three Reasons Why International Criminal Defence Is Hard, and What Might Be Done about One of Them.” Criminal Law Forum 14:317–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Groome, Dermot M. 2006. “Re-evaluating the Theoretical Basis and Methodology of International Criminal Trials.” Penn State International Law Review 25:791–803.Google Scholar
Guillaume, Gilbert. 2011. “The Use of Precedent by International Judges and Arbitrators.” Journal of International Dispute Settlement 2:5–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harmon, Mark, and Gaynor, Fergal. 2007. “Ordinary Sentences for Extraordinary Crimes.” Journal of International Criminal Justice 5:683–712.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hola, Barbara, Smeulers, Alette, and Bijleveld, Catrien. 2009. “Is ICTY Sentencing Predictable? An Empirical Analysis of ICTY Sentencing Practice.” Leiden Journal of International Law 22 (1): 79–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hola, Barbara, Smeulers, Alette, and Bijleveld, Catrien. 2011. “International Sentencing Facts and Figures.” International Journal of Criminal Justice 9:411–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jodoin, Sebestien. 2010. “Understanding the Behavior of International Courts.” Journal of International Law and International Relations 6:1–34.Google Scholar
King, Kimi, and Greening, Megan. 2007. “Gender Justice or Just Gender? The Role of Gender in Sexual Assault Decisions at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.” Social Science Quarterly 88 (5): 1049–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knoops, Geert-Jan. 2004. “The Dichotomy between Judicial Economy and Equality of Arms within International and Internationalized Criminal Trials: A Defense Perspective.” Fordham International Law Journal 28:1595–1644.Google Scholar
Meernik, James. 2003. “Equality of Arms: The Individual vs. the International Community in War Crimes Tribunals.” Judicature 86:312–19.Google Scholar
Meernik, James. 2011. “Sentencing Rationales and Judicial Decision-Making at the International Criminal Tribunals.” Social Science Quarterly 92 (3): 588–608.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meernik, James, Aloisi, Rosa, and Ding, Jennifer. 2012. “The Influence of Home Country Characteristics on Judicial Decision Making at the ICTY.” Judicature 95 (4): 171–76.Google Scholar
Meernik, James, and King, Kimi. 2001. “The Effectiveness of International Law and the ICTY—Preliminary Results of an Empirical Study.” International Criminal Law Review 1:343–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meernik, James, King, Kimi, and Dancy, Geoff. 2005. “Judicial Decision Making and International Tribunals: Assessing the Impact of Individual, National and International Factors.” Social Science Quarterly 86:683–703.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Megret, Frederic. 2009. “Beyond Fairness: Understanding the Determinants of International Criminal Procedure.” UCLA Journal of International Law and Foreign Affairs 14:37–76.Google Scholar
Negri, Stefania. 2005. “The Principle of ‘Equality of Arms’ and the Evolving Law of International Criminal Procedure.” International Criminal Law Review 5:513–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nerlich, Volker. 2013. “Daring Diversity—Why There Is Nothing Wrong with ‘Fragmentation’ in International Criminal Procedures.” Leiden Journal of International Law 26:777–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Orie, Alphons. 2012. “Stare Decisis in the ICTY Appeal System.” Journal of International Criminal Justice 10:635–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schabas, William A. 2007. An Introduction to the International Criminal Court. 3rd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schabas, William A. 2009. Genocide in International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A., and Spaeth, Harold J. 1993. The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Segal, Jeffrey A., and Spaeth, Harold J. 2002. The Supreme Court and the Attitudinal Model Revisited. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sikkink, Kathryn. 2011. The Justice Cascade. New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Sloane, Robert. 2007. “Sentencing for the Crime of Crimes: The Evolving Common Law of Sentencing of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.” Journal of International Criminal Justice 5:713–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sluiter, Göran, Swart, Bert, and Zahar, Alexander, eds. 2011. The Legacy of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Terris, Daniel, Romano, Cesare P. R., and Swigart, Leigh. 2007. The International Judge: An Introduction to the Men and Women Who Decide the World’s Cases. Waltham, MA: Brandeis University Press.Google Scholar
Ventura, Manuel. 2013. “Farewell ‘Specific Direction’: Aiding and Abetting War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity in Perišić, Taylor, Šainović et al., and US Alien Tort Statute Jurisprudence.” In The War Report. Geneva: Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.Google Scholar