This article analyses attempts by the Libyan Investment Authority (LIA), the sovereign wealth fund of Libya, to challenge the domestic implementation of asset-freezing measures requested by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the United Kingdom (UK) and Italy. The UNSC requested that states freeze LIA assets in early 2011 before partially easing the restrictions imposed in September of the same year, while the ICC requested the freezing of assets belonging to the then Libyan leader, Muammar Gaddafi, and two further accused persons shortly thereafter. The article scrutinises how these measures were incorporated into the legal orders of the UK and Italy before analysing how the LIA has challenged these actions in the Italian courts and those of England and Wales. In so doing, it aims to demonstrate that domestic courts offer additional fora in which individuals (and entities) might seek to enforce the legal protection to which they are entitled when faced with their assets having been frozen by states at the request of the UNSC and/or the ICC.

This article aims to understand the policies of three major Northeast Asian states toward the Rome Statute and the International Criminal Court (ICC) that it established. Using a unique measurement tool, it traces the interactions of South Korea, Japan, and China with the Court since negotiations on its formation in the late 1990s. Included in this analysis is a focus on how Northeast Asian states have responded to recent efforts to bring North Korea into the Court's orbit for that country's military actions in 2010 and its human rights record over several decades. Data is based on publicly available documents as well as interviews with diplomats, legislators, legal experts, and activists in Japan, South Korea, and China conducted in 2015.

International criminal law (ICL) developed in large part from international humanitarian law during the mid-to-late twentieth century. The International Criminal Court (ICC), a permanent institution to investigate and prosecute ICL cases finally was established in 2002. Although widely supported, certain states feared that the ICC would diminish national sovereignty. Yet, in formal legal terms, ICL and the ICC’s Rome Statute are just like other branches of public international law in terms of their relationship with national constitutional arrangements. ICL does not challenge states’ primary executive and judicial powers; it does not introduce any general rights for citizens or particularly onerous obligations for states that are already subject to the rule of law; and its intrusion on national sovereignty is only in evidence when a state’s leaders either are responsible for atrocities or are incapable of protecting their citizens from such atrocities. ICL thus is very different from international human rights law (IHRL), which directly impacts national constitutional arrangements. When ICL does come into play, however, arguably it may perform quasi-constitutional functions, in particular offering the only means under public international law to remove state officials from office when they are believed responsible for the most harmful abuses of power.

The principle of proportionality is one of the core principles of international humanitarian law. The principle is not easy to apply on the battlefield, but is even harder to apply retrospectively, in the courtroom. This article discusses the challenges in applying the principle during international criminal trials. It discusses the principle itself, followed by an explanation of the general challenges of dealing with violations of international humanitarian law, and more specifically the rules related to the conduct of hostilities, during war crime trials. The way in which the principle has been used before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is examined, including an in-depth discussion of the recent Gotovina case. The second part consists of an evaluation of Article 8(2)(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, and discusses the difficulties the International Criminal Court would face in cases dealing with violations of the principle of proportionality.

In 2011 three Congolese ICC defence witnesses applied for asylum in the Netherlands. A decision has not yet been made. This article argues that three outcomes of their procedures are most likely: (i) an asylum permit is granted, (ii) a permit is denied, or (iii) the applicants are excluded from refugee protection on the basis of Article 1(f)(a). All scenarios would have serious practical and political consequences for the ICC, the Netherlands, and the DRC. There is a limited, but real, chance that future defence witnesses will also apply for asylum. This mere threat might already seriously hamper future co-operation between the ICC and states parties. More practical and political dilemmas stemming from a lack of harmonization between international criminal law and principles of international protection lie ahead, since a coherent scheme on how to deal with ICC defendants whose case has been rejected in the pre-trial phase, who have been acquitted, or who have served their sentence and cannot be refouled to their country of origin has thus far not been realized. As it stands the international community does not have an answer to this fundamental system error yet.