Enhancing the Legitimacy and Accountability of Prosecutorial Discretion at the International Criminal Court
Abstract
The rapid ratification of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the orderly election of its judges and prosecutor belie the radical nature of the new institution. The Court has jurisdiction over genocide, aggression, crimes against humanity, and war crimes—crimes of the utmost seriousness often committed by governments themselves, or with their tacit approval. The ICC has the formal authority to adjudge the actions of high state officials as criminal and to send them to jail, no matter how lofty the accused’s position or undisputed the legality of those acts under domestic law. While the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and Rwanda (ICTR) also possess this authority, those institutions operate directly under the control of the United Nations Security Council and within narrow territorial limits. The ICC, by contrast, is largely independent of the Council and vests the power to investigate and prosecute the politically sensitive crimes within its broad territorial sweep in a single individual, its independent prosecutor.
Cite this
Allison Marston Danner (2003). Enhancing the Legitimacy and Accountability of Prosecutorial Discretion at the International Criminal Court. American Journal of International Law. https://doi.org/10.2307/3109838
@article{marston2003enhancing,
title = {Enhancing the Legitimacy and Accountability of Prosecutorial Discretion at the International Criminal Court},
author = {Danner, Allison Marston},
year = {2003},
journal = {American Journal of International Law},
doi = {10.2307/3109838}
}Citations in this library
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