Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-30T21:03:17.090Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Judicial Lawmaking, Discourse Theory, and the ICTY on Belligerent Reprisals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2019

Milan Kuhli  and
Klaus Günther

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

Without presenting a full definition, it can be said that the notion of judicial lawmaking implies the idea that courts create normative expectations beyond the individual case. That is, our question is whether courts' normative declarations have an effect which is abstract and general. Our purpose here is to ask about judicial lawmaking in this sense with respect to international criminal courts and tribunals. In particular, we will focus on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). No other international criminal court or tribunal has issued so many judgments as the ICTY, so it seems a particularly useful focus for examining the creation of normative expectations.

Type
III. Judicial Lawmaking to Protect the Individual: The IACtHR, the ECtHR, and the ICTY
Information
German Law Journal , Volume 12 , Issue 5: Beyond Dispute: International Judicial Institutions as Lawmakers , 01 May 2011 , pp. 1261 - 1278
Copyright
Copyright © 2011 by German Law Journal GbR 

References

1 ICTY, Prosecutor v. Kupreškić et al., Case No. IT-95-16-T, Trial Chamber, Judgment of 14 January 2000.Google Scholar

2 See M. Cherif Bassiouni, Introduction to International Criminal Law 426 (2003); Cassese, Antonio, From Nuremberg to Rome: International Military Tribunals to the International Criminal Court, in: 1 The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 3, 12 (Antonio Cassese, Paola Gaeta & John R.W.D. Jones eds, 2002).Google Scholar

3 S.C. Res. 808, UN Doc. S/RES/808 (1993) of 22 February 1993, para. 7.Google Scholar

4 Antonio Cassese, International Criminal Law 324 (2008).Google Scholar

5 UN Doc. S/RES/808 (note 3), para. 15.Google Scholar

6 Report of the Secretary-General pursuant to paragraph 2 of Security Council Resolution 808 (1993), UN Doc. S/25704 of 3 May 1993.Google Scholar

7 See Burns, Peter, An International Criminal Tribunal: The Difficult Union of Principle and Politics, in: The Prosecution of International Crimes, 125, 129 (Roger S. Clark & Madeleine Sann eds, 1996).Google Scholar

8 Bassiouni (note 2).Google Scholar

9 See Cassese (note 4), 17.Google Scholar

10 Danner, Allison Marston, When Courts Make Law: How the International Criminal Tribunals Recast the Laws of War, 59 Vanderbilt Law Review 1, 41 (2006).Google Scholar

11 Id., 19. Google Scholar

12 See Oellers-Frahm, Karin, Das Statut des Internationalen Strafgerichtshofs zur Verfolgung von Kriegsverbrechen im ehemaligen Jugoslawien, 54 Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 416, 423 (1994); Schabas, William A., The UN International Criminal Tribunals. The Former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone 76 (2006); Greenwood, Christopher J., International Humanitarian Law and the Tadic Case, 7 EJIL 265, 282 (1996).Google Scholar

13 Danner (note 10), 46.Google Scholar

14 UN Doc. S/25704 (note 6), paras 34-35; see Oellers-Frahm (note 12), 420.Google Scholar

15 See Cassese (note 4), 17; Danner (note 10), 4. Google Scholar

16 S.C. Res. 827, UN Doc. S/RES/827 (1993) of 25 May 1993, para. 8.Google Scholar

17 Danner (note 10), 22.Google Scholar

18 Günther, Klaus, The Sense of Appropriateness. Application Discourses in Morality and Law 2 et seq. (trans. by John Farrell, 1993).Google Scholar

19 Habermas, Jürgen, Between Facts and Norms. Contributions to a Discourse Theory of Law and Democracy 172 (1996); Günther, Klaus, Ein normativer Begriff der Kohärenz. Für eine Theorie der juristischen Argumentation, 20 Rechtstheorie 163, 172 (1989).Google Scholar

20 Habermas (note 19), 192.Google Scholar

21 Bogdandy, Armin von & Venzke, Ingo, Zur Herrschaft internationaler Gerichte: Eine Untersuchung internationaler öffentlicher Gewalt und ihrer demokratischen Rechtfertigung, 70 Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 1, 14 (2010).Google Scholar

22 Habermas (note 19), 439 et seq. Google Scholar

23 Prosecutor v. Kupreškić et al. (note 1), para. 149.Google Scholar

24 Id., paras 31 et seq. Google Scholar

25 Id., para. 68.Google Scholar

26 Id., paras 125 & 515 (note 767).Google Scholar

27 The Kupreškić Case was actually the second ICTY decision regarding the issue of belligerent reprisals. Four years earlier, on 8 March 1996, the ICTY had addressed the reprisal issue in the case against Milan Martić. (ICTY, Prosecutor v. Martić, Case No. IT-95-11-R61, Trial Chamber, Decision of 8 March 1996.) However, this earlier decision is not as important for our examination as the Kupreškić decision because the reasoning in the later case was much more detailed than in the earlier one.Google Scholar

28 Kalshoven, Frits, Belligerent Reprisals Revisited, 21 Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 43, 44 (1990); Greenwood, Christopher J., The Twilight of the Law of Belligerent Reprisals, 20 Netherlands Yearbook of International Law 35, 37 (1989); Oeter, Stefan, Methods and Means of Combat, in: The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law, para. 476 (Dieter Fleck ed., 2008); Drucksachen des Deutschen Bundestags (BT-Drs.), No. 14/8524, 15.Google Scholar

29 Greenwood, Christopher J., Belligerent Reprisals in the Jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, in: International and National Prosecution of Crimes Under International Law. Current Developments, 539 (Horst Fischer, Claus Kreß & Sascha Rolf Lüder eds, 2001); Kalshoven (note 28).Google Scholar

30 Oeter (note 28).Google Scholar

31 Wolfrum, Rüdiger & Fleck, Dieter, Enforcement of International Humanitarian Law, in: The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law, para. 1406 (Dieter Fleck ed., 2008).Google Scholar

32 Kalshoven (note 28); Oeter (note 28).Google Scholar

33 See Lippman, Matthew, Conundrums of Armed Conflict: Criminal Defenses to Violations of the Humanitarian Law of War, 15 Dickinson Journal of International Law 1, 99 (1996).Google Scholar

34 Newton, Michael A., Reconsidering Reprisals, 20 Duke Journal of Comparative & International Law 361, 374 (2010); Greenwood (note 29), 542.Google Scholar

35 Prosecutor v. Kupreškić et al. (note 1), para. 535; see Newton (note 34).Google Scholar

36 See Prosecutor v. Kupreškić et al. (note 1), para. 535; Oeter (note 28), para. 478.Google Scholar

37 Prosecutor v. Kupreškić et al. (note 1), para. 535; Oeter (note 28), para. 477.Google Scholar

38 Newton (note 34).Google Scholar

39 Wolfrum & Fleck (note 31).Google Scholar

40 Greenwood (note 29), 541. Google Scholar

41 See Nill-Theobald, Christiane, “Defences” bei Kriegsverbrechen am Beispiel Deutschlands und der USA 291 et seq. (1998); Greenwood (note 28), 39.Google Scholar

42 See Oeter (note 28), para. 479.Google Scholar

43 Greenwood (note 29), 543.Google Scholar

44 Prosecutor v. Kupreškić et al. (note 1), para. 527.Google Scholar

45 Id., para. 531.Google Scholar

46 Ambos, Kai, Der Allgemeine Teil des Völkerstrafrechts. Ansätze einer Dogmatisierung 305 et seq. (2002).Google Scholar

47 Prosecutor v. Kupreškić et al. (note 1), para. 527.Google Scholar

48 Id., para. 527; see Ambos (note 46).Google Scholar

49 See Prosecutor v. Kupreškić et al. (note 1), para. 527; Greenwood (note 29), 543; see BT-Drs. 14/8524, 16.Google Scholar

50 Prosecutor v. Kupreškić et al. (note 1), para. 527; see Ambos (note 46).Google Scholar

51 The Martens Clause first appears in the preamble of the 1899 Hague Convention on Land Warfare. For details, see Antonio Cassese, The Martens Clause: Half a Loaf or Simply Pie in the Sky?, 11 EJIL 187 (2000).Google Scholar

52 Prosecutor v. Kupreškić et al. (note 1), para. 527; see Robert Heinsch, Die Weiterentwicklung des humanitären Völkerrechts durch die Strafgerichtshöfe für das ehemalige Jugoslawien und Ruanda 306 (2007).Google Scholar

53 Greenwood (note 29), 556; see also, for a critical view, Theodor Meron, The Humanization of Humanitarian Law, 94 AJIL 239, 250 (2000).Google Scholar

54 Prosecutor v. Kupreškić et al. (note 1), para. 529.Google Scholar

55 Id., para. 530; see Meron (note 53).Google Scholar

56 Greenwood (note 29), 540.Google Scholar

57 Ambos, Kai, Other Grounds for Excluding Criminal Responsibility, in: 1 The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, 1003 (Antonio Cassese, Paola Gaeta & John R.W.D. Jones eds, 2002).Google Scholar

58 Id., 1028.Google Scholar

59 See Kuhli, Milan, Bestrafung aufgrund von Gewohnheitsrecht? Zum Menschlichkeitsverbrechen der Vertreibung und zwangsweisen Überführung nach § 7 Abs. 1 Nr. 4 VStGB, in: Jahrbuch Öffentliche Sicherheit 2010/2011 (vol. 2) (Martin H. W. Möllers & Robert Chr. van Ooyen eds, 2011) 387 et seq.; Milan Kuhli, Das Völkerstrafgesetzbuch und das Verbot der Strafbegründung durch Gewohnheitsrecht 35 et seq. (2010).Google Scholar

60 The German wording of Art. 2 VStGB is:Google Scholar

Auf Taten nach diesem Gesetz findet das allgemeine Strafrecht Anwendung, soweit dieses Gesetz nicht in den §§ 1 und 3 bis 5 besondere Bestimmungen trifft.Google Scholar

61 Bt-Drs. 14/8524, 16.Google Scholar

62 The German wording is:Google Scholar

Angesichts dieser Tendenz der Völkerrechtsentwicklung, die sich noch im Fluss befindet, empfiehlt es sich nicht, die Repressalie als Rechtfertigungsgrund im Völkerstrafgesetzbuch zu regeln. Für den schmalen Bereich, in dem die Repressalie derzeit noch als Rechtfertigungsgrund in Betracht kommt, kann es der Rechtsprechung überlassen bleiben, im Einzelfall unter Berücksichtigung des jeweiligen Entwicklungsstandes des humanitären Völkerrechts zu entscheiden (BT-Drs. 14/8524, 16).Google Scholar

63 See Kuhli (2010) (note 59), 113 et seq. Google Scholar

64 Here we are following the illuminating analysis of Scott Shapiro, What Is the Internal Point of View?, 75 Fordham Law Review 1157 (2006).Google Scholar

65 See Kleinfeld, Joshua, Skeptical Internationalism: A Study of Whether International Law is Law, 78 Fordham Law Review 2451, 2478 (2010).Google Scholar

66 Günther, Klaus, The Legacies of Injustice and Fear: A European Approach to Human Rights and their Effects on Political Culture, in: The EU and Human Rights, 117 (Philip Alston ed., 1999).Google Scholar

67 Günther, Klaus, Legal Pluralism or Uniform Concept of Law? Globalisation as a Problem of Legal Theory, 5 No Foundations - Journal of Extreme Legal Positivism (For Kaarlo Tuori on his sixtieth birthday) 5 (2008).Google Scholar