Full Description
This volume examines the underexplored relationship between philosophy and international criminal law, disciplines commonly separated despite their shared engagement with truth, responsibility, and judgment. Philosophical inquiry has long analyzed concepts central to criminal adjudication, yet these insights have rarely informed international criminal trial practice. Consequently, notions such as intent, causation, qualia, fairness, truth, dignity, luck, and amnesty are often employed in conceptually thin or imprecise ways. Treating these notions simultaneously as legal requirements, forms of deliberative reasoning, and subjects of contemporary philosophical debate, the book demonstrates how philosophy can clarify, discipline, and strengthen international legal reasoning. The discussions, written by philosophically and scientifically informed scholars and experienced international law practitioners, revisit foundational philosophical ideas, critically reassess their assumptions, and translate them into operational tools for international criminal jurisprudence. Through close engagement with doctrinal practice and trial reasoning, the contributors address persistent conceptual gaps and unresolved interpretive difficulties that have shaped past and ongoing proceedings. The volume aims to expand the analytical resources available to judges, prosecutors, defense counsel, investigators, and scholars. It ultimately presents international criminal law as a form of applied philosophy, arguing that rigorous philosophical analysis can enhance the coherence, fairness, and practical effectiveness of international criminal law practice worldwide.
Contents
Foreword, William A. Schabas; Introduction, Wibke K. Timmermann and Predrag Dojčinović; PART I: Definitions: Matters of Proof and Elements of Crimes; 1. Between the Divine Image and Radical Freedom: Conceptualizing and Applying Human Dignity in International Criminal Law, Wibke K. Timmermann; 2. Deciphering Conundrums of Intent, Carl-Friedrich Stuckenberg; 3. Forbidden Intentions: Purpose, Pretext, and Double Effect in International Humanitarian Law, Alexander K.A. Greenawalt; 4. Rethinking the Winds of Causation: Philosophical Foundations and Legal Applications in International Criminal Trials, Predrag Dojčinović; PART II: The Search for Truth: The Importance of Understanding the Reasons for International Crimes; 5. Injecting the Concepts of Qualia and Lebenswelt into War Crimes Trials, Anna Vyshniakova and Volodymyr Volkovskyi; 6. Truth in War Crimes Trials, Yvonne McDermott; 7. Moral Luck, Legal Luck, and the Prosecution of Former Child Soldiers, Shannon Fyfe; 8. The Banality of Personal Motives in International Criminal Trials, Juan Pablo Calderon Meza; PART III: The Search for Justice and Reconciliation; 9. Phenomenology and Atrocity Victims, Gregory S. Gordon and Ryan Martínez Mitchell; 10. Srebrenica, Conscience, and the Search for Justice at the ICTY/IRMCT, Dan Saxon; 11. Global Justice Beyond Punishment, Margaret M. DeGuzman and Katherine McAuliffe; 12. The Reconciliation Goal of International Criminal Tribunals: Towards a Theory of Indirect Impact, Sigall Horovitz; 13. Amnesties and Pardons at the International Criminal Court, Meritxell Regué; PART IV: The Point of It All: Whither International Criminal Justice?; 14. Fairness: Between Justice, Beauty and Whiteness?, Frédéric Mégret; 15. The ICC between Law and Power: Past, Present, Future?, Yael Vias Gvirsman; 16. The 'Oneness of Humanity' as the Starting Point for International Criminal Justice, Rod Rastan.
