Lecture Outline

I) Individual and State Responsibility

A) Collective Responsibility

B) Sovereign Immunity

C) Generational responsibility

D) Criminal responsibility

II) International Crimes

III) Jurisdiction

A) ICJ

B) Bases of Criminal Jurisdiction

1) Territorial principle

2) Nationality principle

3) Protective principle

4) Passive personality principle

5) Universality principle

IV) Custody

A) Asylum

B) Prosecution

C) Extradition

Exceptions

D) Abduction

1) Legal

a) Ker-Frisbie doctrine -

b) male captus, bene detentus

c) Alvarez-Machain

2) Illegal

a) Toscanino

b) Other states

E) Trials in absentia

F) Security Council Sanctions: Lockerbie

 V) International Criminal Court

VI) Explanations for the Rise and Limits of I Criminal Law

A) General Explanations

1) Neo-liberalism: Functionalism & Interdependence

2) Transnational Moral entrepreneurs

B) Slavery & Slave Trade

C) Piracy & Privateering

D) Terrorism

E) Narcotics

Discussion Section

Questions From Readings

From von Glahn, Law Among Nations, Chapters 11-13

1) What is "imputability?"
2) What is the rule of local remedies?
3) Are states responsible for acts committed by their nationals?
4)What are ex gratia payments?
5) What counts as "political offenses?"
6) What is the act of state doctrine?
7) What is the attenant clause?
8) What is asylum?
9) What criminal offenses are subject to action under international law?
10) What bases of jurisdiction over extraterritorial crimes under international law were cited by the court in United States v. Younis?
11) What was the Achille Lauro Affair?
12) What must happen, according to von Glahn, for progress against terrorism?
13) What acts are punishable under the Genocide Convention?
14) What is the significance of the Filartiga case?

  From Ethan Nadelmann, "Global Prohibition Regimes: The Evolution of Norms in International Society"

1) Why do international prohibition regimes evolve?
2) What are transnational moral entrepreneurs?
3) What are the stages of regime development?
4) When are criminal regimes ineffective?
5) What factors brought about the abolition of piracy?
6) What explains the demise of slavery and the slave trade?
7) What explains the emerging regime against illicit drugs?
8) Why are opium, coca and cannabis proscribed but not alcohol and tobacco?
9) Why has the narcotics regime not been successful?
10) Why does prostitution persist?
11) Where do norms emerge from?
12) Upon what does the ultimate success of a prohibition regime depend?

Cases to Consider:

1) The U.S. and South African Supreme Courts arrived at very different decisions on the issue of whether courts have jurisdiction over defendants obtained by abduction. Should states be allowed to kidnap alleged offenders to bring to trial? Should trials be permitted where the suspect was obtained by abduction? In domestic law, such means are grounds for dismissal, analogous to evidence improperly attained and due process. Does the ruling in Alvarez-Machain represent a failure of taking international law seriously?
Suppose U.S. agents kidnap a South African for trial in the U.S. South Africa protests, and the two countries decide to let the ICJ resolve the dispute. You are chosen as the adjudicator. How would you decide: does the U.S. have jurisdiction to try the accused under international law?

2) When (if ever) would abduction be justified? For all crimes, or only certain crimes? How would you rank the following principles: protection of infringements against state sovereignty, protection of human rights, bringing the accused to justice / punishment of international crimes? Should those who commit horrendous crimes be guaranteed immunity because there is one state that condones their conduct and refuses to extradite or prosecute?

3) When (if ever) should states refuse extradition? What should count as a political offense, and should they provide the grounds for asylum?

4) Should a state without the death penalty extradite a defendant to a country which will try capital crimes?

5) What legal issues are involved in the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie? On what bases may the US and UK claim criminal jurisdiction over the suspects? Are the sanctions against Libya legal? Where should a trial be held, and under whose law?

6) What is the current controversy over the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act? Is it an acceptable tool against terrorism according to international law?

7) A number of controversies arose over the rape of an Okinawa girl by U.S. soldiers in Japan in 1995. Where should such trials be conducted? Under whose law? If convicted, where should criminals serve their sentences? Why?