Fundamental principles and concepts of criminal law
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General principles of criminal law
1. INTRODUCTION More than fifty years after the Nuremberg trials, the international community has established a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC). The dramatic midnight vote in Rome on July 17, 1998, called by the United States of America, overwhelmingly approved the statute for the ICC by 120 votes to seven, with twenty-one abstentions.1 The vote was a historical breakthrough and the message sent out from Rome is an unequivocal stop to impunity for grave human rights violations. However, a closer look at the Rome Statute brings us quickly back to the world of complex legal technicalities and insufficiencies, a product of the “spirit of compromise” hanging over the diplomatic negotiations at the Food and Agriculture Organization building in Rome. The Rome Statute is not a dogmatically refined international model penal and procedural code. It could not be. But it is an attempt to merge the criminal justice systems of more than 150 States into one legal instrumen...
