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International Criminal Law is the area of international law that deals with acts that
are so heinous that international law directly criminalises those activities by individuals.
What we look at in the course are the four main international crimes which are war crimes,
crimes against humanity, genocide and the crimes of aggression. In addition what we
look at are the principles of liability which make serious high-level leaders responsible
for international crimes even when they are committed by their underlings. In addition
to the crimes, we do look at the ways of enforcing international criminal law which include courts
like the international criminal tribunal for Yugoslavia, the international criminal tribunal
for Rwanda and also the international criminal courts. And we finish the course by looking
at alternatives to criminal prosecution, because in many situations what actually happens is
prosecutions don?t occur you have something like for example in South Africa the truth
and reconciliation commission that tried to deal with international crimes in a different
way. Well we begin the course by looking at what
exactly international crime is and how that differs from what we call a transnational
crime which is a slightly different concept where international law itself doesn?t directly
criminalise the relevant behaviour. Then we look at what was probably the beginnings of
modern international criminal law which is the Nuremburg and Tokyo tribunals. From looking
at those Second World War trials what we move onto is the Yugoslavia Tribunal and the Rwanda
Tribual which really revived international criminal law in the 1990?s, but those aren?t
the only courts that we look at. We also look at courts, for example, like the special court
for Sierra Leone, the special tribunals that are sitting in Cambodia to judge the Khmer
rouge, before moving on to what is really the centre of the modern international criminal
law regime and that?s the International Criminal Court and we look at both the institution
itself and its practice and the critiques that have come about of its practice in the
last 10 years. Then we look at the four international crimes, war crimes, crimes against humanity,
genocide and aggression. And we look at defences, for example, which may apply to international
crimes that we don?t have for domestic crimes, such as for example the possible pleas of
superior orders which are often made when we look in to allegations of war crimes. Having
looked at the crimes, the principles of liability in court then we look at the possibility of
for example the use of amnesties, the use of truth and reconciliation commissions but
also for example means of dealing with international crimes such as lustration which is where large
scale administrative bodies are simply disestablished owing to the fact that they were complicit
with international crimes. The way the course is taught is seminar based
and what happens is before the seminar people are given specific readings to do from the
journals and the books and the academic literature in the area. And then what happens is people
come to the seminar, there are questions they have already prepared, but also we discuss
the readings and we discuss at a very high level how the critiques of international criminal
law apply both from the point of view of international law and the point of view of criminal law
because international criminal law is a mix of both areas of law.