Newsletter Criminology and International Crimes Vol. 10, nr. 1, June 2015

Vol. 6,No. 2 December

INDEX

E

Itimer

leaving a couple of people dead and injured, twittergave fast and accurate information, at least fasterand more accurate than regular news providers.Already during the signing ceremony of the PeaceAgreement in Bamako the first statements andpictures reached us through twitter. Twitter gives arather clear picture of the situation in the north ofMali – Ségou, Mopti, Gao, Tombouctou (Kidal is ano-go area unfortunately) – which is helpful whenyou consider to go there. And if you want to havesome updated information about crises elsewhere inthe world where you have friends or other interests,such as Burundi, Yemen and South Sudan, there istwitter.

But the flipside of twitter is the overload of ‘easyopinions’ of people. Individuals or presidents alikewho want to make known what they think orassume or suspect of some incident. People whoassume that others are interested in their opinions.And after the first direct and helpful information,knowledge easily transforms into rumours. Anattack becomes a personal revenge, someone‘knows’, or a criminal settlement of scores,someone else ‘knows’, or a full blown terroristevent, as a third person is certain he ‘knows’.

In this volume of the newsletter you will find all butshort and easy opinions, and we hope you agreewith us. A long read about the Hissein Habré casethat will soon start in Dakar, Senegal. It took a longtime to get him in the dock. “This trial is Chad’srendezvous with history”, according to Reed Brody,who was involved in this case from the start. Morein general the trial is a litmus test for pan-Africanjustice, as Thijs Bouwknegt writes. “In all, the mostchallenging task for the judges of this newbie court,is to separate facts from fictions, see throughemotions and politics and rule on Habré’sculpability for the specific charges spelled outagainst him, based on the evidence and ‘beyond any

NEWSLETTERCRIMINOLOGYAND INTERNATIONAL

CRIMES

Editorial page 1

Agenda page 2

The Hague news XIVBy Barbora Hola page 2

A Long Read

Chad – Dakar: Extraordinary Habré trial is litmustest for Pan-African justiceBy Thijs Bouwknegt page 5

Short Articles

ISIS, The Ezidis, and the Question of Genocide inIraqBy Kjell Anderson page 9

A Letter from the Netherlands

How an article on female perpetrators made mecaught up in a media-hypeBy Alette Smeulers page 10

Dissertations

Advocates of Humanity: Human Rights NGOs inInternational Criminal JusticeBy Kjersti Lohne page 11

The Law and Politics of the Crime of AggressionBy Marieke de Hoon page 13

Book Review

Susan Slyomovics: How to accept GermanReparations, University of Pennsylvania PressPhiladephia 2014By Frederiek de Vlaming page 14

Selected New Publications page 16

June 2015 page 1

DITORIAL

recently jumped into the 21st century by joiningwitter, the main reason being that I want to benformed if something serious happens in Mali, or

ore specific in Bamako, where I live. Somexamples. When some months ago a famous bar/estaurant in my neighbourhood was attacked,

reasonable doubt’. Only that will make the first‘Pan-African’ trial a vitalising specimen for thefuture of (international) criminal justice after massatrocity in Africa.”

And after this long read you may want to followThijs Bouwknegt on twitter @thijsbouwknegt to getinformed about the Habré case on a daily basis.

Roelof Haveman

Miscellaneous page 21

Newsletter Criminology and International Crimes Vol. 10, nr. 1, June 2015

AGENDA

5-9 July 2015 International Symposium of theworld society of victimology, Perth, Australia.Deadline abstracts: 7 March 2015. Moreinformation:http://www.aic.gov.au/events/aic%20upcoming%20events/2015/wsv.html

8-12 July 2015 International Association ofGenocide Scholars (IAGS), biennial conference,Yerevan, Armenia. Deadline submissions: 23January 2015. Website:http://www.genocidescholars.org/news/twelfth-meeting-iags-july-8-12-2015-yerevan-armenia

20-31 July 2015 Aegis Rwanda short course:Genocide and mass atrocities: actors, causes andresponses to violence, Kigali, Rwanda

2-5 September 2015 European Society ofCriminology (ESC) Annual Conference, in Porto,Portugal. More information:http://www.eurocrim2015.com/

7-9 October 2015 Rwanda Partnering in GlobalLegal Research Conference, Kigali, Rwanda. Forinformation send an email to dr. Alphonse Muleefu:alpfong@yahoo.com or:http://www.ur.ac.rw/?q=node/203

18-21 November 2015: American Society ofCriminology (ASC), annual meeting, 18-21November 2014, Washington DC, United StatesWebsite: ttps://www.asc41.com/annualmeeting.htm

TBy

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1. ICTY

On 30 January 2015 the ICTY delivered the appealsjudgment in its largest case against five seniorofficials in the Army of Republika Srpska (VRS)for crimes perpetrated by Bosnian Serb soldiersduring and after the Srebrenica massacre. VujadinPopovic, a former Chief of Security of the DrinaCorps, and Ljubisa Beara, a former Chief ofSecurity in the Main Staff of the VRS, wereconvicted as participants in a joint criminalenterprise (JCE) of genocide, conspiracy to commitgenocide, war crimes and crimes against humanityand sentenced to life. Drago Nikolic, who used tobe a Chief of Security in the VRS Zvornik Brigade,was sentenced to 35 years for aiding and abettinggenocide, crimes against humanity and war crimesthrough his participation in a JCE and RadivojeMiletic’s sentence for crimes against humanity andwar crimes committed via a JCE was reduced to 18years (he got 19 years on trial) due to a TrialChamber’s error in accepting as an aggravatingfactor his use of authority within the VRS. Mileticwas at the time of the events a Chief of theOperations and Training Administration of the VRSMain Staff. The last defendant, Vinko Pandurovic,a Commander of the Zvornik Brigade, was foundguilty of aiding and abetting and as a superior forcrimes against humanity and war crimes and sent toprison for 13 years. In dismissing one of hisgrounds of appeal on aiding and abetting, theAppeals Chamber recalled that under customarylaw “specific direction” is not an element of thismode of liability (with three judges appendingdissenting opinions). The Appeals Chambermodified (reversed but also added) the TrialChamber’s factual and legal findings regarding alldefendants (for a commentary regarding theChamber’s argumentation with respect to the JCEand a necessary link to convict high rankingdefendants of crimes perpetrated on the ground seehere). In addition, appeals judges granted the

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June 2015 page 2

HE HAGUE NEWS XIV: Barbora Hola

in every issue, this brief summary describes theost recent developments in international criminalstice in the legal capital of the world – the Hague.is time, the period between 1 December 2014d 31 May 2015 is covered. During these sixonths, the ICTY and ICTR have finalized some ofeir last cases and the ICC experienced a ratherrbulent period with terminating or suspending twoits pending cases against standing heads of Statesimarily (and not surprisingly) for a lack of Stateoperation. Note: the article contains hyperlinks topporting documents.

Prosecution’s appeal and convicted Popovic andBeara for conspiracy for genocide. This constitutesthe first (final) conviction at the ICTY alleging aconspiracy to commit genocide in Srebrenica at thehighest echelons of the Bosnian Serb army.

In April the Appeals Chamber finalized one moreSrebrenica-related case with another high-rankingarmy official. It upheld Zdravko Tolimir’sconviction for genocide and his life sentence.During the war in Bosnia, Tolimir was a formerAssistant Commander and Chief of the Sector forIntelligence and Security Affairs of the Main Staffof the VRS. The appeals judges confirmedTolimir’s convictions for genocide, conspiracy tocommit genocide, extermination, murder,persecutions, and inhumane acts (forcible transfer),on the basis of Tolimir’s participation in two JCEs:

and in the newsletter.

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(i) to murder the able-bodied men of Srebrenica andZepa and (ii) to forcibly remove Bosnian Muslimsfrom the same area. Some of Tolimir’s convictionswere partly reversed.

In total, the ICTY indicted 20 individuals forcrimes committed in Srebrenica and Zepa and trialshave been completed for 16 of them, while someindividuals at the highest political and militaryposts in Republika Srpska and Serbia during theBosnian conflict, such as Karadzic, Mladic, Stanisicand Simatovic, are still awaiting their (final)judgments.

2. ICTR

In December the Appeals Chamber of the ResidualMechanism for International Tribunals delivered itsfirst appeals judgment and partially affirmedconvictions against Augustin Ngirabatware, aformer Minister of Planning in the Rwandangovernment during the genocide. Ngirabatware’sconviction, under the extended form of jointcriminal enterprise, of rape as a crime againsthumanity based on the rape of a Tutsi woman bymembers of the Interahamwe was reversed onappeal and his original sentence of 35 years wasreduced to 30 years imprisonment. The appealsjudges affirmed his conviction for incitement tocommit genocide based on his speech at oneroadblock and instigating and aiding and abettinggenocide for his role in distributing weapons andother statements in Nyamyumba commune.

In the only and last case now pending before theICTR Appeals Chamber against six accusedincluding the first woman convicted of genocide byan international criminal tribunal, PaulineNyiramasuhuko, a former Minister of Family andWomen’s Development in Rwanda, the ICTRAppeals Chamber heard oral arguments of theparties in April and the appeals judgment isexpected to be delivered in November this year.

3. ICC

UgandaAlmost ten years after the ICC issued his arrestwarrant for crimes against humanity and warcrimes, in January this year, Dominic Ongwen, aformer child soldier who rose in the ranks of thenotorious rebel group in Uganda – Lord’sResistance Army (LRA) – and became one of itscommanders, surrendered to the US forces in theCentral African Republic and was transferred to theICC custody. In March, upon the request of theProsecutor, the confirmation of charges hearing wasset to 21 January 2016 in order to give theProsecutor time to prepare adequately and re-investigate some of the allegations and contact

witnesses who had been interviewed more than adecade ago, eventually enlarge the factual basis ofthe case but also fulfil its disclosure obligations.Ongwen’s case raises many interesting questionsregarding his victim/perpetrator status and a degreeof agency and responsibility in such complex cases.

Democratic Republic of CongoIn February the ICC Appeals Chamber finalized thethird case in the ICC’s almost 13-year history, and,by majority, confirmed the acquittal of NgudjoloChui, a former leader of the National IntegrationistFront who was in 2012 acquitted on trial of chargesrelating to his role in the attack on the village ofBogoro in Ituri District in the DRC. The majoritydismissed all the Prosecutor’s grounds of appealthat concerned the application of ‘beyond anyreasonable doubt’ standard and other evidenceassessment-related issues, including allegations ofwitness tampering. Two judges filed a dissentingopinion and argued that the case should have beenre-tried. The acquittal decision was followed by achain of events, that highlighted yet anotherproblematic issue with the international criminaljustice system: the problematic and as of yetunresolved position of the acquitted individuals,who (claim that they) cannot return to their homecountries due to risks for their safety. One can onlylook at the situation of individuals acquitted by theICTR, who have been for years or even decades“stuck” at the UN paid-for safe house in Tanzaniawith no legal status and no country to go to. Chui’ssituation in this sense raises the same problematicissues, with the exception that the Netherlandsactually took much more pro-active stance thanTanzania and deported Chui back to the DRC.Immediately after the ICC appeals decision wasrendered, Chui was transferred to Schiphol airportby Dutch authorities to be flown back to the DRC.However, after boarding the plane he was taken outof the aircraft pending yet another attempt by hislawyers to prevent his deportation (Chui’s firstasylum application was rejected by the Netherlandsin 2012). Since his acquittal on trial Chui has beenclaiming that he would be at risk upon return to theDRC given his statements during his trialimplicating the DRC government in the attack onBogoro village. The Dutch authorities, however,have never accepted these allegations and also thistime his application for asylum was rejected (for thesecond time). In May Chui was deported to theDRC. For a detailed commentary on the Chui’sasylum claims saga and the role of the ICC thereinsee here.

In the case against Bosco Ntaganda, Trial ChamberVI postponed the opening of the trial originally setto start in June. The trial against Ntaganda is now tobegin in the second or third week of July with theexact date to be announced in a due course. In an

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unprecedented move, the Chamber recommendedthat it would be in “the interest of justice” to holdthe opening statements in Bunia, the DRC, and thusbring “international criminal justice” closer to theaffected communities. Currently the ICCPresidency is holding consultation with theauthorities of the DRC as to practical feasibility ofthe recommendation and the decision, whetherindeed Ntaganda is going to hear the openingstatements of his trial back in Congo, has not beenmade public yet.

In March 2015, the ICC Appeals Chamber in theLubanga case issued a decision amending thevictims’ reparations order delivered on trial inAugust 2012. In its decision the Appeals Chamberoutlined principles and minimum elements requiredof a reparation order emphasizing the principles offairness and equality in awarding reparations.According to the appeals judges reparationprogrammes should be based on gender-inclusiveapproach and include reintegration measures,together with general rehabilitation and practicalmeasures such as housing, education and training,for former child soldiers to address theirvictimisation, discrimination and stigmatisation.Given the number of victims of Lubanga’s crimes,the Trial Chamber did not err in awardingreparations exclusively on a collective basis. Allvictims, irrespective of their participation in trial orthe fact whether they filed an individual request forreparations, together with members of theircommunities and families, should be able to takepart in reparation programmes (if they meet criteriaof eligibility). The Trust Fund for Victims shouldsubmit the draft implementation plan for collectivereparation awards to trial judges in no more than 6month also implementing consultations regardingthe design and nature of collective reparationsconducted with victims, who participated at trialand filed individual requests for reparations. Theplan should also include a budget estimate thatwould be necessary to remedy the harm caused bycrimes committed by Lubanga. Since Lubanga wasnot convicted of crimes of sexual violence, theharm suffered by victims of sexual violence shouldnot be included in this monetary amount (ascorrectly argued by the Trial Chamber). In addition,the Appeals Chamber reasoned that the trial judgeserred in not making Lubanga personally liable forthe collective reparations (due to his indigence) andargued that the personal liability of the convictedindividual should be established in the order. If aconvict is unable to finance the implementation ofthe order, the Trust Fund for Victims could use itsresources and claim it back from the defendant at alater stage. For a discussion on the effectivenessand appropriateness of collective reparationsmeasures in the context of DRC context see here.

Republic of KenyaAs reported in the last issue, the Prosecutor in thecase against Uhuru Kenyatta asked judges toindefinitely adjourn the case. Judges, however,were not willing to further adjourn the trial and inDecember 2014 the OTP thus decided to terminatethe case against the Kenyan President. TheProsecutor withdrew the charges against Kenyattadue to a lack of evidence, in particular death orintimidation of several witnesses, a change ofcrucial elements of testimonies of some keywitnesses and non-cooperation of the Kenyangovernment. The Prosecutor in her statement,however, emphasised a possibility of reopening ofthe case, should additional evidence occur. InMarch 2015 the Trial Chamber V(B) terminated theproceedings against Kenyatta. The Kenyattaproceedings clearly demonstrate the extremedifficulties and sensitivity of trying to prosecute asitting head of state at the ICC. Similarly, twoweeks after announcing the withdrawal of chargesagainst Kenyatta, the Prosecutor “shelved” theinvestigations against the second president in officein the Darfur situation.

Darfur, SudanIn December 2014 the ICC prosecutor has informedthe UN Security Council that she will not conductany further investigations in the Darfur situationand put (also) the case against the Sudanese sittinghead of state, Omar Al Bashir, “on hold”. Thereason for this decision, as presented by Bensouda,is the Council’s own failure to act on securing thearrest of the suspects, a lack of States cooperationand generally unfavourable political situation toconduct an effective investigation.

Central African RepublicAt the end of May Trial Chamber VII set the datefor the opening of the trial in the case concerningoffenses against the administration of justiceallegedly committed during the trial of Bemba byJean Pierre Bemba himself and four co-accused:Aimé Kilolo Musamba, Jean-Jacques MangendaKabongo, Fidèle Babala Wandu and NarcisseArido. The trial is to open on 29 September 2015.The offences they are charged with includecorruptly influencing witnesses by giving themmoney and instructions to provide false testimony,presenting false evidence and giving falsetestimony in the courtroom.

Côte d’IvoireOn 11 December 2014, Pre-Trial Chamber Iconfirmed four charges of crimes against humanityagainst Charles Blé Goudé, the third ICC suspectin the situation in Côte d’Ivoire next to the formerPresident Gbagbo and his wife Simone. Accordingto the ICC press release “[t]he Chamber thoroughlyexamined all the evidence submitted to it by the

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parties, which included more than 40,000 pages ofdocumentary evidence, including statements by 134witnesses, and more than 1200 items of audio andvideo material” and committed Goudé to trial oncharges of murder, rape, other inhuman acts (oralternatively attempted murder) and persecutioncommitted in Abidjan between 16 December 2010and on or around 12 April 2011. In March 2015upon the request of the Prosecutor the case againstBle Goudé was joined with the case againstLaurent Gbagbo “in order to ensure the efficacyand expeditiousness of the proceedings” as thecharges against both accused stem from the sameincidents involving the same direct perpetratorswho targeted supporters of Ouattara and theProsecutor relies on largely similar evidence. Thetrial of Gbagbo was originally set to start in July butgiven this development the starting date waspostponed to 10 November 2015.

In the case against Gbagbo’s wife Simone Pre-TrialChamber I rejected the challenge to theadmissibility of her case lodged by Côte d’Ivoireand requested Simone’s surrender in December2014. The Chamber noted that Ivorian authorities“were not taking tangible, concrete and progressivesteps” to investigate and prosecute whether SimoneGbagbo is responsible for the same conduct that isalleged in the case before the ICC. Meanwhile inMarch Simone was convicted by domestic courts inCôte d’Ivoire of among others “disturbing peace,forming and organizing criminal gangs andundermining state security” for her conduct duringthe post-election crisis in 2011 and sentenced to 20years imprisonment. On 27 May 2015 the AppealsChamber, however, confirmed the admissibilitydecision of the Pre-Trial Chamber. With respect tothe nature of the crimes Gbagbo was prosecuted fordomestically, i.e. economic crimes and crimesagainst the State, the Appeals Chamber concludedthat “it was not unreasonable for the Chamber tofind this conduct to be of a different nature to MsSimone Gbagbo's conduct, as alleged before theICC, in relation to the crimes against humanity ofmurder, rape and other forms of sexual violence,persecution and other inhumane acts”. Thiscomplementarity struggle illustrates the strict andsome would argue very formalistic interpretation of“the substantially same conduct test” underlying theICC application of complementarity principle.

PalestineOn 1 April Palestine became the 123rd State toratify the Rome Statute and become a member of“the ICC system of justice”. In January, the ICCwas mandated by a unilateral declaration ofPalestine to have a jurisdiction over crimescommitted since 13 June 2014 and the Prosecutorannounced that she is opening a preliminaryexamination into the situation of Palestine. As

reported in one of the previous issues, Palestinealready in 2009 attempted to trigger the Court’sjurisdiction regarding crimes allegedly committedduring the Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. However,back in the time the Prosecutor rejected to act uponthe request arguing that Palestine does notconstitute “a State” under the Rome Statute. Inbetween, Palestine acquired a non-member observerState status at the UN (upgraded from non-Stateobserver) The Palestinian accession to the ICCStatute met with opposition of many powerfulstates, such as the USA or Israel, reignited the old“peace versus justice” discussion and sparkedattention of many commentators. For an insightfulsymposium on the effects of the ICC membershipon Israeli-Palestinian conflict see here.

All articles are welcome. Please send yourcontribution to one of the editors (addresses at thebottom of the newsletter)

A LONG READ

Chad – Dakar: Extraordinary Habré trial islitmus test for Pan-African justiceBy Thijs Bouwknegt

Note: the article contains hyperlinks to supportingdocuments.

From 20 July onwards, Chad’s previous despot,Hissène Habré, will be in the dock on charges ofcrimes against humanity, torture and war crimesbefore the Extraordinary African Chambers (EAC)in the Senegalese court system. His trial will beAfrica’s first to proceed to trial under the guise ofuniversal jurisdiction – the principle thatinternational crimes have no borders. Its decisivestart signals a judicial rendez-vous with the ghostsof Chad’s brutal past and will bring to a close aprotracted legal drama, meandering through amyriad of jurisdictions. Next to being a catalysingforum for witness testimony, the Habré trial willabove all be a litmus test for ‘Pan-African’ justice.

Glacial venture

"Je ne reconnais pas les faits qui me sont reprochés.Je n'ai jamais commis de tels actes.” A scarce verseof renunciation was the single utterance Hissein(also spelled Hissène) Habré wished to share withhis litigant, Demba Kandji. It was late afternoon, 3February 2000. In a courtroom in Dakar’s RegionalCourt, the Senegalese Investigating Judge had justcharged Habré as an accessory to torture and crimesagainst humanity and placed him under virtualhouse arrest. Hopes for justice were rising among

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seven Chadians who – in the days before – hadtestified before Kandji about political killings,torment, disappearances and arbitrary arrests undertheir former President’s repressive rule. Kandji hadmoved fast, fearing Habré’s flight. The Senegalesemagistrate had summoned the survivors to recounttheir plights during two days of closed-doorhearings. Only two days after the Chadians,supported by international human rights groups,had filed a criminal complaint against Habré for his“barbarous acts”. Finally, hearings for historicatrocity seemed to set on the horizon. But attaininguniversal justice for old crimes is a glacial venture.It demands uncompromising determination, a longand deep breath. But above all, it requires endlesspatience: another fifteen-and-a-half years in thecase of Habré.

Timing and venue had appeared to be perfect topursue the “Desert Fox” into the legal hole. A spiritof international justice filled the air in the late1990s. Balkan war criminals and Rwandangénocidaires were being served judgements at theUN’s ad hoc tribunals (ICTY & ICTR) in TheHague and Arusha. In Rome, in July 1998, 120states endorsed the conception of the InternationalCriminal Court (ICC), the world’s first permanentcourt to pursue supposed criminals againsthumanity. Only a couple of months later, in LondonBridge Hospital, the former Chilean martinetAugusto Pinochet Ugarte was detained, based on aSpanish arrest warrant listing 95 counts of torture.Senegal seemed an arena of imminent opportunity.The West African nation had championed insubscribing to international law and human rightstreaties. In February 1999, Dakar was the debutantstate to ratify the Rome Statute. Back in 1985 it wasamong the first countries to sign the UN’sConvention Against Torture, well ahead of a cliqueof western establishments. There was no betterplace to test the waters of universal jurisdiction thancoastal Senegal. Its guinea pig was the exiledHabré, who lived in Dakar since 1990, owning twomansions in the Ouakam and Mamellesneighbourhoods.

But the tide was ebbing. Politics eroded justice andHabré, who was soon dubbed “Africa’s Pinochet”,was manoeuvred back into luxurious impunity, justlike the Chilean General. The gruesome victims’testimonies about torture in Habré’s secret prisons –including “Arbatachar”, in which a prisoner’s armsand legs were tied together behind the back – andhow they had been forced to dig mass graves tobury Habré’s opponents, rapidly eclipsed duringSenegal’s hotly contested elections. While thezealous Kandji had started hearing further witnessesand was anticipating to amass more testimony andevidence in Chad, Dakar’s appeals panels ruled outjurisdiction over the more than a decade old crimes,

perpetrated roughly 4.500 kilometres away. Amonth later, Abdoulaye Wade, took office asSenegal’s new President. But one of his closestjudicial advisors was Madické Niang, who alsohappened to be Habré’s lawyer. In June, JudgeDemba Kandji was detached from the Habréinvestigation, followed by further dubiousreshufflings in the judiciary. Flexibly framed legalreasoning shipwrecked the case at Senegal’s highestcourt, the Cour de Cassation, on 20 March 2001.Habré’s prosecution in Senegal was played out: histormenting phantoms were chased out of thecourtrooms and footnoted into the annals history.

Itinerary into Chad’s gloomy past.

Current President Idriss Déby Itno unseated Habréin December 1990, ending an eight-year saga ofstate repression, political assassinations, ethnicstrife and deadly persecution of southerners,Chadian Arabs, the Hadjerai and the Zaghawa.Three hundred political prisoners were reportedlyassassinated before Habré escaped to Senegal, viaCameroon, reportedly with his bags filled with theformer French colony’s entire treasury. In return heleft behind a catalogue of horror with its tracesregistered in his own secret archives of tyranny.Human Rights Watch (HRW) advocatesrediscovered them in 2001. Strewn on the timewornfloors at the former headquarters of the Directionde la Documentation et de la Sécurité (DDS) laysome 49.000 documents including old magazines,photographs, radio transcripts and official state filesand memoranda. Among the records of Habré’sdreaded Gestapo-like secret police service werealso prisoner lists, arrest and interrogation reports,death certificates and spying reports – a virtualitinerary into Chad’s gloomy past. Puzzled together,they knit the threads of clandestine prisons andtorture cells that were the tapestry of Habré’s policestate, including its emblematic Piscine; an oldcolonial swimming pool transformed into anoubliette holding 10 cells, right next door to theUSAID office in central N’Djamena.

As the doors of these torture chambers swung openafter Habrés’s ousting in 1990, hundreds of politicalprisoners were freed; the Piscine and otherbuildings were left abandoned. Thirteen monthslater, after some hasty reconstruction work,prosecutor Mohamat Hassan Abakar set up office inthe loathsome DDS main offices. His truthcommission avant la lettre was to investigate“crimes and misappropriations” by Habré and hisinner circles. Abakar’s investigators stumbled uponthe detailed reports of executions, destruction ofvillages and a massacre in the DDS files. And overthe next 17 months, they exhumed three massgravesites and collected 1726 witness statements offormer detainees, victims’ relatives, prisoners of

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war, DDS agents and senior officials. From thesesources, the commission counted some 54.000detainees in Habré’s prisons and 3.806 people dead.It loosely extrapolated that the total casualtynumber of what it regarded a ‘veritable genocide’and crimes against humanity between 1982 and1990 could reach up to 40.000 deaths. Besidesnaming the 14 most notorious torturers andpublishing their pictures, the Commission ofInquiry revealed in its report that the United Statesof America (USA) was the principal supplier offinancial, military and technical aid to the DDS andHabré, maintaining an anti-terrorist bulwark againstLibya's Muammar Gaddafi. But Deby’s government– of which many officials and the president himselfwere involved in Habré’s misdeeds – did not pursueany justice and even locked away the truthcommission’s records.

Universal jurisdiction

The solid truth commission account, alongside areport by a French medical team, which treated 581torture victims in the mid-1980s, composed thedocumentary core of what became the first step inwhat has been portrayed by observers as an"interminable political and legal soap opera – onethat requires tabulated chronologies to navigate thelabyrinths of international law,” starting in JudgeDemba Kandji’s Senegalese chamber. It wassupported by the invaluable witness testimoniestreasured by one of the plaintiffs, SouleymaneGuengueng. Walking out of prison in December1990, the former accountant became a free man butlooked like a skeleton (on his own account),shattered by his own distressed three-year captivityand witnessing hundreds fellow inmates perishfrom brutality, ill-treatment and malady.Throughout his imprisonment he swore to himselfto fight for justice. In the immediate yearsfollowing Habré’s downfall he accrued 792 witnessaccounts from fellow survivors. The accounts,which he hid underneath his mud-brick house foryears, detailed 97 political killings, 142 cases oftorture, 100 “disappearances” and 736 arbitraryarrests, most carried out by the DDS. ButGuengueng’s optimism for justice in Senegal wasshort-lived. Nevertheless his perseverance outlasteddespair. A little more than a year after the case wasdropped, Guengueng was back in his old jails,exhibiting them for a Belgian judge.

From the early 2000’s, civil complaints aboutserious human rights abuses had been piling up inthe offices of a special investigative unit at thearrondissement judiciaire Bruxelles. Belgium’s1993 broad but internationally controversialuniversal jurisdiction law – or the genocide law inlocal parlance – permitted judges to look intoallegations of international crimes outside of its

borders. The list quickly swelled: Rwanda, Israel,Palestine, Burma, China, Cambodia, Guatemala,Congo (Brazzaville), Iran, Chile, Cuba, Iraq, Côted’Ivoire, Central African Republic, Mauretania.Brussels became pivotal in the Habré case. DanielFransen, one of the investigating magistrates,received a first complaint late November 2000,filed by a Belgian citizen of Chadian descent. Twodozen comparable civil-party applications followedin the subsequent months. Fransen found that theacts complained of – extermination, torture,persecution and enforced disappearances – could becharacterised as “crimes against humanity” andtravelled with a prosecutor, four police officers anda court clerk to Chad on 26 February 2001. Armedwith computers, camcorders, camera’s and policeequipment, he met with the 54-year old Guenguengand other witnesses who had lined up for hours totell their stories. They took the Belgian team totheir old prisons, gravesites and to the DDSarchives. On returning on 8 March, Fransen tookthe copies of Habré’s political police, received thedisclosed truth commission dossiers and compiled27 binder files of evidence.

After a four-and-a-half-year review of the material,Judge Fransen issued an international arrest warrantin absentia for Habré in September 2005. Hecharged the former President as the perpetrator orco-perpetrator of “serious violations of internationalhumanitarian law, torture, genocide, crimes againsthumanity and war crimes.” But instead ofextraditing Habré, Senegal set in motion a furtherlegal rollercoaster. President Wade took the matterinto his own hands and addressed it to the AfricanUnion (AU), which after mounting pressure fromthe European Union and a ruling by the UNCommittee against Torture requested Senegal toprosecute Habré “on behalf of Africa.” From 2007,Dakar grudgingly prepared for trial, reconfiguringits laws, lobbying with donors, amending theconstitution and reviewing fourteen new victimcomplaints. So the wheels of justice were grinding,but the political will was against the grain, still. Asurprise judgement emerged in Chad in August2008: Chad convicted and sentenced Habré to deathin absentia for allegedly helping Sudanese-backedrebels, who tried to overthrow Déby in 2008.Senegal’s Justice Minister – who was closelyconnected to Habré’s defence – was quick to statethat with this judgement he can no longer be tried inany other jurisdiction.

Extraordinary – ‘Pan-African’ justice

Frustrated by Wade’s covert and overt endeavoursto thwart or derail a prosecution of Habré, Belgiumin 2009 sought an order from the UN’s highesttribunal – the International Court of Justice (ICJ) –to order Senegal to try Habré or to extradite him,

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based on Fransen’s warrant. The chorus of pressurewas then joined by yet another court, a year later.This time the Court of Justice of the EconomicCommunity of West African States(ECOWAS) ruled that Habré should be tried beforea “special ad hoc procedure of an internationalcharacter.” In response, the African Union proposeda plan for special chambers within the Senegalesejustice system with some foreign judges on thebench. But again, Wade’s administration ruled outholding Habré's trial in Senegal. When Macky Sallwas elected president in 2012, however, the tablewas turned and progress towards a trial snowballed.Sall quickly answered to the ICJ’s instruction toprosecute Habré “without further delay” if it did notextradite him; within half a year, he agreed with theAU to set up the Extraordinary African Chambers(EAC) in August 2012.

Similar to the ICC, the international criminaltribunals and countries with broad universaljurisdiction laws, the extraordinary chambers havejurisdiction over the international crimes ofgenocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes andtorture. Its temporal focus is historic and covers theexact period of Habré’s rule – stretching between 7June 1982 and 1 December 1990 – while itsgeographical scope is limited to Chad. Inauguratedin February 2013 and structured within the existingSenegalese court system, the EAC have four levels:an Investigative Chamber with four Senegaleseinvestigative judges, an Indicting Chamber of threeSenegalese judges, a Trial Chamber and an AppealsChamber. The Trial Chamber and the AppealsChamber each have two Senegalese judges and apresident from another African country. MbackéFall was appointed Prosecutor. On Mbacke’srequest, Habré – alongside 5 other Chadians – wasindicted on 2 July 2013. The former president wasput in pre-trial detention while the court issuedinternational arrest warrants for the others.

Investigations were launched immediately. Belgiumtransmitted its binders to Dakar and the judges tookcopies of the DDS files that HRW unveiled in 2001.They were a springboard from where theinvestigative judges commenced their thorough 19-month inquiry, including four ‘rogatory’ missionsto Chad. Mohamat Hassan Abakar, the truthcommissions’ president, was one of the firstwitnesses interviewed. His statement adds up to the2500 testimonies that were gathered from a range ofChadians: direct and indirect victims and keywitnesses, including former officials of the Habrégovernment. A notorious DDS agent, BandjimBandoum, testified for two days in France in early2014. Experts were appointed to conduct dataanalysis, decipher Habré’s handwriting oncommunications, detail the historical context of hisrule and outline the functioning and command

structure of the military. On the ground, theArgentine Forensic Anthropology Team carried outexhumations at mass grave sites, locating anduncovering bodies of people killed in massacres.Altogether, the fact-finding judges found they hadsufficient evidence for Habré to face charges ofcrimes against humanity and torture as a member ofa “joint criminal enterprise” and of war crimes onthe basis of his superior responsibility. Specifically,in a detailed 196-page indictment, Habré wascharged with: (1) the systematic practice of murder,summary executions, kidnapping followed byenforced disappearance and torture, amounting tocrimes against humanity, against the Hadjerai andZaghawa ethnic groups, the people of southernChad and political opponents; (2) torture; and (3)the war crimes of murder, torture, unlawful transferand unlawful confinement, and violence to life andphysical well-being.

Habré’s co-accused - Saleh Younous, GuihiniKorei, Abakar Torbo, Mahamat Djibrine, andZakaria Berdei – remain outside the reach of theEAC. In March this year, Younous and Djibrine,alongside 18 other former Habré-era officials, wereconvicted in Chad on charges of murder, torture,kidnapping and arbitrary detention, based oncomplaints filed by victims. Berdei is also believedto be in Chad, though he is not in custody. Torboand Korei’s whereabouts are currently unknown.Habré will thus stand trial alone. Contrasting theyears that it took to bring him to the dock, the trial,which will be publicly broadcasted in Senegal andChad, will be relatively short; it is scheduled to befinalised in seven months, including writing anddelivering a judgement. Presiding judge BgerdaoGustave Kam from Burkina Faso (who formerlyworked at the ICTR) and his two Senegalesecolleagues – Amady Diouf and Moustapha Ba –will spend extensive time examining the 100witnesses who are lined up to testify in Dakar.

Rendez-vous with history

Victims, who have spearheaded and lobbied forHabré’s prosecution from the start, will berepresented by their lawyers, but only a smallnumber will have a forum to relate their traumaticexperiences. “I want to look Hissène Habré in theface and ask him why I was kept rotting in jail forthree years, why my friends were tortured andkilled,” said Souleymane Guengueng. JacquelineMoudeina, a Chadian civil parties lawyer, who hasbeen spearheading the victims’ case against Habrésince 2000, wrote that when she found herselffacing Habré, alongside two victims and in front ofthe investigating magistrates for a confrontationalhearing during the investigations, she “took fullmeasure of my role as giving a voice to theseinnumerable people who do not have one.”

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“This trial is Chad’s rendezvous with history,”commented HRW’s Reed Brody: “For the firsttime, after 24 years, victims are getting their day incourt as the abuses of the Habré government arebeing presented for all to hear.” True, theinquisitorial style of the proceedings will catalyseunique vive voce historical narratives, revelationsand confessions about atrocities committed in the1980s. Yet, they are not testimonies from the past;the histories being told and written in Dakar will bein retrospect, enticed by judges, prosecutors,victims’ representatives and defence lawyers andperceived through the lens of judicial proceedings.Moreover, trials can proof to be uncomfortableplatforms for confronting the past. As evidenced byhis website, Habré, who has always denied anywrongdoing and protested against his prosecution,is keen to introduce a counter-narrative.

Also, we only get to know Habré as a suspect in thecourtroom and prisoner in his cell, not in his allegedcriminal state, ruling Chad two decades ago; in theway his victims would remember him. Media-shy,the only image of the now 73-years old Habré hastranspired in court documents. The investigatingjudges profiled Habré in their inquiry as a calm,courteous and helpful family man, married to twowives and father to six children and an adopted son.A devote Muslim, he spends his prison daysreading the Quran, walking and seeing his familyand lawyers. His jail life reveals a pious andspiritual personality, yet, observed an expert, hemanifests an oversized ego. Before his judges hewill play down his acts and mute their impressionsin order to appear a plain, colourless and ‘ordinaryman’, centrifuged through the machinery ofinternational justice. In all, the most challengingtask for the judges of this newbie court, is toseparate facts from fictions, see through emotionsand politics and rule on Habré’s culpability for thespecific charges spelled out against him, based onthe evidence and ‘beyond any reasonable doubt’.Only that will make the first ‘Pan-African’ trial avitalising specimen for the future of (international)criminal justice after mass atrocity in Africa.

SHORT ARTICLES

ISIS, The Ezidis, and the Question of Genocidein Iraq1

By Kjell Anderson

The Êzîdîs2 have long lived on the margins. Thislife on the edge is a product of both their relatively

1 This short piece is extracted from a longer article co-authoredwith Fazil Moradi. The longer article includes interviews withvictims and perpetrators.2 Êzîdîs (“the worshiper of Peacock Angel”) are commonlyreferred to as Yezidis both inside and outside of Iraq. Although

small numbers and their distinctive cosmology.Such minority marginality has made the Êzîdîsperennial victims at the hands of the more powerfulethno-religious groups that surround them. In fact,Êzîdîs’ oral history holds that they have suffered 73Fermāns3 (“massacres”) throughout their history.The rise of the Islamic State in Iraq and Sham(ISIS; or Islamic State, IS) has heralded a new ageof Êzîdî victimization. The 74th Fermān is underway. It is characterized by a systematic policyaimed at the destruction of Êzîdîs’ collective andindividual existence through massacres, ethniccleansing, sexual violence, mass enslavement, andforced conversion.

In this commentary I will discuss the question ofISIS’ intent to destroy the Yazidis on the basis oftheir ideology and acts on the ground. The violencewill also be assessed in terms of the objective andsubjective elements of the crime of genocide. Doesthe current violence amount to genocide in terms ofthe pattern of attacks and the intention of theperpetrators?

Self-sacrifice and the sacrifice of the “infidel” or“idolater” are endemic to the Islamic State’suniversal mission. The implementation of the ‘lawof God on earth’ requires the destruction of thedamned, the unworthy population as an act ofpurification and sacrifice. These actions asmaterialized forms of the “law of God” classify anddivide the world on a binary basis into thefaithful/idolater, absolute truth/complete falsehood,divine punishment/reward, law of God/human-made law, and so on. Since it is “Allāh” who is responsible for the creation of these dichotomies nohuman on earth is allowed to ask why, or toquestion obedience to the Islamic State.Destructive violence in such a worldview is self-justifying. In this ‘abode of war’ the destruction ofenemies gives purpose to the movement andfortifies ‘just world’ thinking about the wickednessof the Islamic states’ enemies.

In the case of the Islamic State and the Êzîdîs wecan draw from both the contextual evidence (i.e. thesystematic targeting of Êzîdîs specifically) and thedirect statements of Islamic state with regards to itsintentions for the Êzîdîs group. These statementsare found in official ISIS publications, notablyDābiq. In this context, not only are Êzîdîs historical accounts of consecutive attempts at exterminationbrushed aside, but also their “continual existence”is stressed as an unanswered question. Thereforethe Islamic State tasks its Shari’a students and

“Yazidi” is inscribed in their Iraqi national identity cards, Êzîdîis the term used by the population as a representative name fortheir religious identity.3 The word Fermān literally means order, but in the context of Êzîdîs it is translated as “Order of extermination.”

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fuqahā’ with the divine responsibility to identify, classify, calculate forms of punishment, andimmediately determine the current and futureexistence of Êzîdîs.

Êzîdîs have come to symbolize heresy, thus theirdestruction is not only divinely acceptable but alsodesirable. This symbolic attractiveness becomes anorganizing principle for violence, motivating thetargeting of specific categories of victims (namelyall Ezidis).

The vulnerability of the Êzîdîs to social andsystematic violence is rooted in the denial of theirrights as a distinct religious minority and incriminogenic conditions on the ground. Theseconditions facilitate victimization through theabsence of guardianship, target attractiveness, andexposure of Êzîdîs, as well as the presence ofmotivated perpetrators.4 The collective dimensionof genocide is represented in genocidal intent,which effectively binds individual victimization tothe collective context. The identification of Yazidisas idolators makes them suitable victims for thecadres of the Islamic State.

The criminal acts committed by ISIS against theÊzîdîs constitute all of the objective elements of thecrime of genocide. Moreover, additional acts, suchas the destruction of religious and cultural sites, areindicative of the presence of genocidal intent. Thecollective and organized nature of the violencedemonstrates that it goes beyond excessescommitted by individuals; rather it represents anorganizational policy and pattern of similar attacks(as required for crimes against humanity andgenocide, respectively, under the Elements ofCrimes of the Rome Statute for the InternationalCriminal Court).

This pattern of attacks is constituted on the basis ofreligious and ethnic identity. As a coordinated planthe operations divided the population by location,gender and age. In most cases the violence unfoldedin a similar manner, beginning with an order toconvert to Islam or face dire consequences. Uponthe order to convert, with only two-three days’notice in some villages, community aftercommunity was emptied of its Êzîdî population.

The extermination of Êzîdîs functions as a form ofIslamic ordering. Their violent transformation into

4 This assessment of victim vulnerability is based on a modifiedRoutine Activity Theory Framework. See Lawrence E. Cohen,James R. Kluegel, and Kenneth C. Land, “Social inequality andpredatory criminal victimization: An exposition and test of aformal theory,” American Sociological Review, vol. 46 (1981),pp. 505-524. See also: Christopher Birbeck and Gary La Free,“The situational analysis of crime and deviance,” Annual Reviewof Sociology, vol. 19 (1993), p. 126.

slavery and death will bring about their totaldestruction, an act seen by the Islamic state not as aprocess of creation but rather the birth of a newcaliphate – God’s kingdom on earth, populated bythe devout – God’s people. The totality of Êzîdîsloss is self-evident. A middle-aged woman livingwith 136 other Êzîdîs, most of them children, insidea tent located inside a private garden, at the outskirtof Sūlaimanī in the Kurdistan region said: “It is all gone. What my parents, grandparents, great-grandparents and I had and did is gone.”

A Letter from ... the Netherlands

How an article on female perpetrators made mecaught up in a media-hypeBy Alette Smeulers

I have been doing research on perpetrators ofinternational crimes for more than twenty yearsnow and have published many articles on this topic.And yes I have been interviewed a few times – beenon television once but nothing prepared me for themedia hype that was unleashed by my article onfemale perpetrators of international crimes. Afterthe publications of the first interview related to thisresearch in one of the major Dutch newspapers, Iwas interviewed almost 20 times in a time period ofa few days – which more or less equals the numberof times I have been interviewed so far my almost20-year long academic career. The media attentioncaught me by surprise and made me wonder whythis article attracted so much media attention.

In my article I conducted a literature survey toassess to what extent women are involved in massatrocities. My aim was to understand why so manymore men than women were involved in massatrocities and whether or not this showed thatwomen are less capable of committing massatrocities than men. I first of all found thatthroughout history many more women have beeninvolved in mass atrocities than we have generallyassumed so far and that these women have beeninvolved in all kinds of atrocities. During periods ofmass violence most women were involved inadministrative and supporting roles such asamongst others traitors, thieves or cheerleaders. Asmaller but still significant number of women havehowever been more actively involved as prisonguards, interrogators, torturers, murderers and evenas sex-offenders. A small number of women havebeen leaders and instigators to mass atrocities. Fourof them have been indicted by the internationalcriminal courts and tribunals (Biljana Plavsic,Pauline Nyiramasuhuko, Ieng Thirith and SimoneGbagbo). They were all very powerful andinfluential women. The first two have already beenconvicted and sentenced to respectively 11 yearsand life imprisonment, the latter two were both

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indicted while their husbands were also indicted(Ieng Sary and Laurent Gbagbo).

The genocide in Rwanda is often referred to as thefirst period of mass atrocities in which so manywomen were involved. This however is not true.The genocide in Rwanda does stand out for thenumber of civilians involved but this includes menand women and thus in absolute numbers this mightindeed be the genocide in which most women wereinvolved. Recent publications have however shownthat many women have been involved in otherperiods of mass violence as well such as amongstothers in Nazi Germany. But also many womenhave been active in African wars, as members ofrebel forces or in European and Middle Easterncountries as terrorists.

Women who are involved in mass atrocities areoften portrayed as either lacking agency; beinginsane or sexually deviant. Sjoberg and Gentry havecalled this the mother, monster and whore narrative.When women are on trial the focus of attention isoften more on the fact that they are women or theirlooks than their crimes. Women who are on trialoften refer to the fact that they are women,sometimes even mothers and grandmothers andseem to say to the judge: how can I be involved inmass atrocities? Pauline Nyiramasuhuko forinstanced called out: ‘I cannot even kill a chickenhow can I be involved in a genocide?’

In my research I concluded that women whocommit mass atrocities do not differ much fromtheir male counterparts. Their involvement in massatrocities can be explained in a very similar way asthe involvement of men can be explained: theyfollow orders, follow the group and get caught up ina spiral of violence and gradually get used to it justlike men. Some women are forced, while othersparticipate voluntarily. Those who participatevoluntarily strongly believe in the ideology and theneed to change society by using violence – just likemany men. They believe that the violence they useis necessary and legitimate. They believe they areentitled to use such violence and that they arefighting on the right side and are doing the rightthing – just like many men.

Although there are more similarities thandifferences between male and female perpetrators –we do need to take into account that women areunderrepresented in militarized units and that theseunits are very masculinized organizations. Theconsequence thereof is that women within thoseunits are more vulnerable than men; they are oftenseen as inferior and have to face prejudice anddiscrimination. This sometimes makes those whojoined such organizations voluntarily very eager toshow that they are not very different from the men.

They want to be part of the group, want to showthey are one of the guys. They want to show thatthey too fit the image of the male warrior who doeswhat it takes to win a war: and if that involvesusing extreme levels of violence (read commitatrocities) they are prepared to do so (just like manymen). But apart from this vulnerability I concludedthat female perpetrators can be as brutal and cruelas men.

This conclusion did not surprise me but theattention my research and conclusion receivedclearly shows that the media and general public hadapparently expected (or hoped for?) something else.In our gendered perspective many people still see awar as a fight between armies consisting of malewarriors and in which men are the perpetrators andwomen the victims. But this perception is notaccurate: contemporary wars often involve manycivilians and both men and women are victimizedbut also: both men and women are the victimizers.The media attention for my research can beexplained by these gender images and our strongbelief (hope?) that women would be different frommen. It took us a long time to accept that most(male) perpetrators are ordinary people rather thandisturbed psychopaths and now we have to acceptthat female perpetrators too are just ordinarywomen in extra-ordinary circumstances.

DISSERTATIONS

Advocates of Humanity: Human Rights NGOs inInternational Criminal Justice (Ph.D. thesis)By Kjersti Lohne

‘Act Now! – Campaign for Global Justice’, ‘Jointhe Movement to End Impunity’, ‘Together forJustice’, ‘Where does your country stand?’ – Thesemessages fill the homepage of the Coalition for theInternational Criminal Court (CICC), an NGOcoalition consisting of more than 2,500 civil societyorganizations worldwide. The activists have joinedforces in a ‘transnational advocacy network’ (Keckand Sikkink 1998) in support of the first ever globalcriminal court – the International Criminal Court(ICC). The development of international criminaljustice is considered part of the advance towards amore ‘people-empowering’ international rule of law– the emergence of a global criminal order createdby and for ‘the people’ rather than states.Accordingly, the creation of the ICC is widelyreferred to as a ‘global civil society achievement’(Glasius 2006), or even, an ‘achievement of themasses organized’ (Cakmak 2008: 373). Accordingto Benedetti, Bonneau, and Washburn (2014: 68),the emergence of the CICC as ‘the most advancedand sophisticated organization thus far createdcollectively by civil society to influence and shapemultilateral treaty-making is an irresistibly

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compelling feature of the story of the RomeStatute’. But how can we understand therelationship between ‘global civil society’ andglobal criminal justice-making? Who ‘is’ globalcivil society and how do they imagine global justicethrough the ICC? This research is about thisrelationship, and what it can tell us about themeaning of punishment at the global level ofanalysis.

To this end, the thesis offers an analysis oftransnational advocacy networks in theirmobilization for global justice through the ICC. Acentral objective is to explore how connections aremade, and how forces and imaginations of globalcriminal justice travel. How do NGOs ‘connect’ forjustice, and what are the aspects of global socialorganization that enable these linkages andruptures? To explore these social (dis)connections, Ihave approached the transnational networks ofNGOs advocating for the ICC as an ethnographicobject, and have carried out multi-sitedethnography, primarily in The Hague and Uganda.The thesis is therefore concerned with how the roleof international human rights NGOs in internationalcriminal justice yields empirical insights into themeaning of punishment in a global society. Thisentails taking ‘seriously the rhetoric andmotivational formulations of penal reformers,which are so often framed in the language ofsensibility, refined feeling, and humanitarianism’(Garland 1990: 198). Yet while attention to theemotional aspects of global criminal justice-makinghas a necessary descriptive component, it is theircollective configurations that become important forrecognizing their global force – when sensibilitiestake on determinative capacities (see also Silbey1992). This is therefore also a thesis about thehumanitarian imaginary, and about its force as theexpression of cosmopolitan solidarity (Calhoun2010). Accordingly, this makes it an account of theconnections and combinations of humanitarianismand ‘penality’ – ‘the complex of discourses,institutions, laws and processes of legalpunishment’ (Garland 1990: 10) – in transnationaladvocacy and justice-making.

Part I inquiries into the materialities ofinternational criminal justice and the role of NGOs,probing the ‘where’, ‘how’, and ‘who’ of globalcriminal justice-making and global civil society.Chapter 3 analyses international criminal justicefrom the perspective of space, showing how globaljustice-making takes shape across a multiplicity ofscales, geographies and sites. The objective is thusto ‘highlight those spaces less visible, to identifythe lived spaces of international law, the contexts ofwhere international law “happens”, and identify thevoices that are able to participate in the “where”’(Pearson 2008: 497). While space is the dimension

of materiality, it is also the dimension thatconfronts us with the co-existence of ‘the other’ –of the simultaneous being of another, and it istherefore always social and political (Massey 1994).An inquiry into how global justice-making isspatially situated is therefore an inquiry into itsgeography of power. Crucially, as noted by Pearson(2006: 284), ‘the changing geographies of powerare leading to the creation of new spaces forinteraction between emerging actors, particularly interms of formal and informal sites of internationallawmaking’. This chapter therefore situates‘transnational advocacy networks’ (Keck andSikkink 1998) as part of the geography of power ofinternational criminal justice, and thus provides thenecessary conceptual and empirical backdrop forasking, as I do in Chapter 4, how transnationaladvocacy networks navigate within thetransnational and global space of internationalcriminal justice-making. As materiality, metaphorand concept, ‘networks’ have become central inmaking sense of patterns of global socialorganization (Castells 1996, Slaughter 2004). As aparadigmatic example of global connection,Chapter 4 therefore examines the networkedorganization of NGOs at the ICC, and in particular,the centrality of the Coalition for the InternationalCriminal Court and its core member NGOs.However, while most theories of networksemphasise consensus and connections, inrecognition that ‘the mission of the universal is toform bridges, roads, and channels of circulation’(Tsing 2005: 7), this research is also animated bythe search for disconnections and ‘frictions’ inglobal encounters of justice-making. Chapter 5therefore further narrows the unit of analysis, froma macro level perspective on space and networkstowards a micro level perspective on individuals,asking the key question: who are the individualswith access to global justice-making processes –who are the advocates of international criminaljustice?

Together, the chapters in Part I of this thesis areprimarily concerned with mapping the globalconnections and disconnections of global criminaljustice-making. However, in recognition thatglobalization ‘is not just the production of(dis)connections, but simultaneously … theproduction of a convincing ideology that obscuresthe source of those (dis)connections and presentsthem as something natural and eternal’ (Burawoy2001: 150), Part II turns to imaginations of globalcriminal justice. We usually think of the domesticsystem of punishment as involving three embodiedrelations: the offender and the offence – who andwhat we punish; the offended against and thevictimized – representing the harm that has beencaused by the offender’s offence; and the punishingauthority, that is, the state. In Part II of the thesis,

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this tripartite structure of criminal punishment isanalysed as it operates in global justice-making. Itexamines what mentalities and sensibilities are atplay in criminal justice when they are disembeddedfrom the ‘Westphalian’ imaginary. How do globalforces and imaginations play into the meanings ofcriminal punishment?

Chapter 6 examines how human rights NGOs haveturned to criminal law, and discusses how humanrights comprise both punitive and non-punitiveelements. Through a comparison with the ‘crimecomplex’ in late-modern societies (Garland 2001),the chapter begins to flesh out what can be called a‘cosmopolitan penal imaginary’ of global criminaljustice which both chimes with and departs fromthe usual criminological diagnosis of penality at thenational level. While the centrality of victims is animportant feature of both domestic and internationalcriminal justice, the proliferation of groupsspeaking on their behalf demonstrates not only theirpowerful motif but also their continuedpoliticisation (Walklate 2005). Chapter 7 thusprobes deeper into the representation of victims,both culturally and by human rights NGOs at theICC. An important element in both of thesechapters is the ‘unsettling’ of the retributiveparadigm (Hoyle and Ullrich 2014) and acosmopolitan view of global criminal justice as aform of social justice and development. Chapter 8discusses the multi-scalar ambitions of globalcriminal justice-making, and the use of the ICC as acrowbar for ‘penal aid’ in the global south (Brisson-Boivin and O’Connor 2013: 216). Drawing onDurkheimian approaches to punishment, the chapteranalyses global criminal justice-making as part ofefforts to create global social order – and to make‘humanity’ its ‘sovereign’.

Kjersti Lohne can be contacted through theDepartment of Criminology and Sociology of Law,University of Oslo, kjersti.lohne@jus.uio.noLiterature references upon request.

The Law and Politics of the Crime of Aggression(PhD dissertation)By Marieke de Hoon

During the 2010 Review Conference in Kampala,delegations from the member states of theInternational Criminal Court (ICC) came to aconsensus agreement to include the crime ofaggression into the jurisdiction of the ICC. Theydecided that in the future, the ICC could becomeable to address situations of aggressive use of forceby prosecuting state leaders for planning, preparing,initiating or executing aggressive resort to armedforce against other states.

This dissertation discusses this new developmentfor the notion of aggression by telling two stories.The first story is that of the regulation andcriminalization of the notion of aggression. Thisnarrative explores how the right of states to resortto force has changed over the past 100 years into acrime of aggression, and how this process sawseveral repeating dynamics of contestation,postponement, diplomatic manoeuvring,proceduralization, and delegation of substantivedecisions off the diplomats’ table. The second storytells of the different ways in which the relationshipbetween law and politics materializes in thesediscussions on aggression. It describes how theregulation and criminalization of aggression can beread as a story about seeking law as a means tosuspend the politics of decisions on use of force.This second story reframes the first, and drawsattention to how the regulation and criminalizationof aggression (the first story) shows how law andpolitics relate to and mutually (re)constitute oneanother.

The main research questions are therefore, first,how the Kampala crime of aggression amendmentcame into existence and came to be constructed as itis. And second, in what ways law and politics relateto one another and what kinds of law and politicsare produced in the construction of the crime ofaggression. Law and politics are not meant here asseparate realms. Rather, the research is about how,in the regulation and criminalization of aggression,political contexts produce particular kinds of legalconstructs and how these kinds of legal constructsgenerate particular kinds of politics. The research istherefore about the law generated by the politics ofregulating aggression and about the politics that isgenerated through this legal construction, and thusabout how law and politics co-constitute each otherin the construction of the crime of aggression.

The main argument that is developed in thisdissertation is that the discourse and argumentativepractices on use of force and aggressiondemonstrate both the legalists’ and the realists’arguments on the relationship between law andpolitics. On the one hand is the legalist idea thatlaw is able to discipline politics, that it binds andrestrains states in their actions, and that it producesa legal framework that consists of rules thatdiscipline what is and what is not an acceptedargument. On the other there is the realist idea oflaw as an empty veil of politics, or in other words,that law is inherently and entirely political andtherefore not able to restrain the political.Discussions often present these two understandingsof the relationship between law and politics as adichotomy, and both legalist and realist literaturestend to focus on disproving the other logic.However, this book shows how rather than a

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dichotomy, both of these conceptions oflaw/politics co-exist and are interdependent withone another.

The dissertation is based on discourse analysis ofthe use of force paradigm and the process ofregulating and criminalizing the notion ofaggression. Discourse and argumentative practicesshow that the law on aggressive use of force isinherently political. It cannot overcome this bysuspending politics and replacing it with anobjective rulebook providing what is and is notaggression. That issue is and remains deeplycontested, and this fundamental disagreementcannot be resolved by using the language of law.Nevertheless, this does not mean that law becomesvalueless, nor that law has no disciplining power.Use of force discourse also shows, for example, thatdiscussions on use of force have become almostexclusively legalized. Arguments of morality orpolitical interest have been replaced by argumentsthat invoke one or another legal source. With thisadoption of the legal language comes the power oflaw that disciplines what is and is not recognized asfollowing the legal logic and as legal argument.Consequently, some positions loose merit, othersgain standing. And because of this performativedynamic, new interpretations and argumentsconstitute new realities, which invites newcontestation, leading to new positioning, and so thedynamic goes on and on. Therefore, there appearsto be a certain (discursive) disciplining power inlaw even if this does not overcome fundamentalsubstantive disagreement.

Moreover, the interdependence of these two logicsleads to the proceduralization of norms on whichthere is fundamental substantive disagreement.Throughout the regulatory history of the notion ofaggression this phenomenon can be observed. Asthis dissertation discusses, repeatedly, substantivedisagreement on what aggression is and thus onwhere to draw the line between aggression and non-aggression led to seeking agreement on procedureson how to deal with resolving such a dispute, butelsewhere than on the diplomats’ table. It led tofinding consensus on how to deal with it, ratherthan dealing with it.

Moreover, legalization of a fundamentallycontested issue without reaching substantiveagreement can also entrench such disagreement byenforcing contested positions with the power oflaw. Disagreement is no longer the holding of adifferent view but becomes an alleged ‘mistakenunderstanding’ of the law. In addition, the moralitythat comes from international criminal law’spresentation as addressing crimes that areinherently criminal and blameworthy, the mala inse crimes, and only the most serious of those, adds

a further moral layer to this entrencheddisagreement. Not only is the position of the otherdisagreed with and an alleged mistakeninterpretation of the law, it also represents evil: ittries to justify a crime that belongs to the mostserious crimes of concern to mankind, and a crimeagainst all, erga omnes. This further entrenchescontestation, which, for example, may makenegotiated settlement or compromise even harder tofind.

This book does not advocate a normative agendafor or against the crime of aggression or propose a(better) legal provision that would tackle thechallenges it identifies and discusses. It rather aimsto provide an analysis of the nature, abilities andlimitations of the crime of aggression that mightcontribute to the development of the internationalcriminal justice field. The international criminaljustice field is currently in the process of exploringhow best to deal with the new crime of aggression.This book aims to contribute to this development byoffering an analysis of the notion of aggression toits conceptual core and by tracing its historicalroots, beyond its mere jurisprudential application ina court of law. Only by understanding the law andpolitics of the notion of aggression can a sensibleeffort be undertaken to work with the crime ofaggression in striving for the highly ambitious aimsthat it is associated with: such as contributing to thesuppression of aggressive war, to maintaining peaceand security, to ending impunity for those engagingin aggressive use of force, and to seeking justice forthose that are affected by aggression. Striving aftersocio-political goals like these with a legal notionthat regulates the most political decision a state has(resorting to force to protect its way of life, innarrower or broader interpretations thereof),requires a profound understanding of the interactionof law and politics and how their interaction has(re)constituted and (re)shaped the notion ofaggression throughout history to arrive at the crimeof aggression amendment that was adopted inKampala.

BOOK REVIEWSusan Slyomovics: How to accept GermanReparations, University of Pennsylvania PressPhiladephia 2014 ISBN 978-0-8122-4606-3By Frederiek de Vlaming

Auschwitz survivor Vera Slyomovics (1926) neversubmitted a claim to any of the post war GermanWiedergutmachungs programs. She did not want totouch ‘blood money’ as it would make her feelfilthy. For Vera and her husband, the Germansshould never have been given the opportunity toassuage their wrongful past through compensationof their former victims. They also never filed forindemnities from the post-Communist Czech

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Republic to regain their confiscated factory andhouse. But Vera’s mother, Gizella Hollander (1905-1999) applied to every possible compensationprogram Germany offered to Holocaust victims.She considered compensation a reminder to theGermans that she was there, alive and kicking.

The Slyomovics family left Europe after the warand emigrated to Canada. Their Canadian borndaughter, anthropologist Susan Slyomovics, wroteabout the Wiedergutmachung from the perspectivesof the members of this Czechoslovak Jewishfamily. How to accept German reparation (2014,University of Pennsylvania Press), is about what itmeans for Holocaust survivors to be offered andreceive money from the state that once tried todestroy them. Little is known about this side of theWiedergutmachung programs that run to this dayand by now have paid out over 60 billion dollars.The book offers a wealth of multi-disciplinaryperspectives on the relationship between a formercriminal state and its victims.

Vera Slyomovics, who at first rejected any form ofcompensation, slightly changed her attitude after abrief but emotional meeting with the newly electedGerman president von Weizsäcker in 1985 at theconsulate in Vancouver. He kissed her on the cheekand then kissed her Auschwitz tattoo and bid her toapply for compensation. Von Weizsäcker embodiedthe new and friendly face of Germany. The gentlegesture of the German president was in sharpcontrast with the experiences of most survivors whosubmitted their claims from the start of the programin the early 50-ies up to the early 80-ies. They wereconfronted by obstruction, at best indifference fromthe German bureaucrats who processed their claimsand the doctors who examined them. Applicantswere regularly met with distrust, accusations thatthey were exaggerating their suffering or beinggreedy, and suspicions of defrauding the state, anexperience described earlier in Paying for the pastby Chrstian Pross (1998). Most of these bureaucratsand doctors were former Nazi officials and anti-Semitism had by no means disappeared. Manyclaimants relived their traumas only to drop theirclaims without having received a single mark.

The decision to accept or not to accept moneydepended on particular experiences, personalconsiderations and temperament. The author’sgrandmother, Gizella Hollander (1905) who,together with her daughter Vera, survivedAuschwitz, had been a successful business womanbefore the war. Within hours after her liberationfrom the camp she requested the German campguard overseeing her work in Auschwitz to issueher a ‘work certificate’, a rare example ofanticipation. For Gizella the Wiedergutmachungmoney was not a form of compensation for the

sufferer but rather, a punishment of the wrong-doer.The request to be compensated symbolized both asignal to her former torturers that she was stillthere, and alive, and - as her granddaughter writes -the ‘push(ing) back (of) her pain’. Until her death in1999, the former ghetto worker, former campinmate, former slave laborer received a monthlyincome that allowed her – at least in material terms- a reasonably comfortable living in Israel.

Slyomovics delves deep into the intriguing questionof the relationship between money and suffering.The compensation monies awarded under theWiedergutmachung programs were - and are - neverhuge amounts. It is difficult to comprehend themeaning of the ‘monetization of guilt’ both for thegiver and the receiver. Is money exchanged forforgiveness? Does the acceptance of moneysymbolize the acceptance of the giver? And arereparations ever enough? Slyomovics observes thatthe amounts are never a real point of discussion. Itis the symbolism behind the few hundred marksthat counts, which is different for every person. ForSlyomovics’ grandmother the acceptance of moneywas a way to put distance between herself and herGerman persecutors, a way of telling them: ‘I won’tforget you and I will never forgive you.’ ForSlyomovics’ mother, Vera, it was the other wayround, a way of re-aligning with the Germans.‘Money is the bond of all bonds’, Slyomovicsquotes Marx, ‘it is the coin that really separates aswell as the real binding agent.’ The purpose ofmoney or monetary payments is a ‘materialembodiment of our links to each other and tosociety. The proceedings, the bureaucracy aroundthe compensation schemes is the ongoingdocumenting of a life, through forms andrecounting what happened, pieces of evidence, thatthere was life, there we once had properties […], itis a form of remembering, for as long as there is theremembering, talk about someone, written aboutsomeone, his or her soul remains among us.’

For Vera the whole reparations process indeedtriggered a form of remembering but she could notexperience it as positive: ever since she decided tosubmit a claim and began to receive the monthlyWiedergutmachung in her bank account, she isrepeatedly reminded of her father’s killing. Itprevents her from ‘healing and building a new life.’‘Before, I was clean’, she tells her daughter.

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SELECTED NEW PUBLICATIONS

The editors selected some books which they thinkyou might want to read. If you have anysuggestions, please send thisroelof.haveman@gmail.com

Action for Armed Conflict. 2015. Acknowledge,Amend, Assist: Addressing Civilian HarmCaused by Armed Conflict and Armed Violence

Mitigating the human costs of armed conflict andarmed violence has become a moral and legalimperative over the past two decades. Within theinternational community, several strategies forhelping civilian victims have emerged. Apublication by Harvard Law School’s HumanRights Program and Action on Armed Violence(AOAV), seeks to advance understanding andpromote collaboration among leaders in the field.

The 28-page report, , examines a range of currentapproaches: casualty recording, civilian harmtracking, making amends, transitional justice, andvictim assistance. In so doing, the report illuminatestheir commonalities and differences and analyzesthe difficulties they face individually andcollectively.

“These programs all provide valuable assistance tocivilian victims, but they have yet to be viewedholistically,” said Bonnie Docherty, editor of thevolume and lecturer on law in the Human RightsProgram. “A comparative look at the approachescould help reduce overlapping efforts and identifygaps that should be closed.”

Acknowledge, Amend, Assist takes its name andmuch of its substance from a two-day globalsummit held at Harvard Law School in October2013. The event brought experts from government,civil society, and academia together to explore thechallenges of meeting victims’ needs and to learnabout where their work might coincide and/orconflict. This publication seeks to build upon themomentum generated by the summit and presentthe issues that it raised to a wider audience.

Bergsmo, Morten, CHEAH Wui Ling and YIPing (eds.) 2014. ‘Historical Origins ofInternational Criminal Law: Volumes 1 and 2’(1,525 pp.) and Morten Bergsmo and SONGTianying (eds.) 2014. ‘On the Proposed CrimesAgainst Humanity Convention’ (503 pp.)

In the first two anthologies on ‘Historical Origins of

International Criminal Law’, 50 authors examinetrials, legal instruments and publications that maybe said to be building blocks of contemporaryinternational criminal law. The volumes aspire togenerate new knowledge, to broaden the commonHinterland to international criminal law, and tovertically consolidate and de-polarise this relativelyyoung discipline of international law. Theunderlying research project also questions ourfundamental assumptions of international criminallaw by going beyond the geographical, cultural, andtemporal limits set by the traditional narratives ofits history.

In ‘On the Proposed Crimes Against HumanityConvention’, 16 authors discuss the need for andnature of a convention on crimes against humanity,using the ‘Proposed Convention on the Preventionand Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity’ as animportant reference point. Authors assess how sucha convention may consolidate the definition ofcrimes against humanity, and develop measures fortheir prevention and punishment, decades after theconclusion of the 1948 Genocide Convention and1949 Geneva Conventions. The book underlines theimportance of avoiding that the process to developa new convention waters down the law of crimesagainst humanity or causes further polarisationbetween States in the area of international criminallaw. It suggests that the scope of the obligation toprevent crimes against humanity will become adecisive question.

Bird, Elizabeth & Fraser M. Ottanelli (eds.). ThePerformance of Memory as Transitional Justice.Intersentia 2014.

Based on case studies spanning time and geographyfrom the Spanish to the Nigerian civil wars, togovernment repression in Argentina, genocidalpolicies in Guatemala and Rwanda and on to forcedpopulation removal in Australia and Israel, thiscollection represents a focused attempt to come togrips with some of the strategies used to expresstraumatic memory work. Together, the essaysconstitute a kaleidoscope of new approaches toshow how such performances of memory contributeto transitional justice efforts, demonstrating thecomplexities of striving for justice andreconciliation through the public expression ofshared memories of violence.

Fijalkowski, Agata & Raluca Grosescu (eds.)2015. Transitional Criminal Justice in Post-Dictatorial and Post-Conflict Societies.Intersentia.

This volume considers the important and timelyquestion of criminal justice as a method ofaddressing state violence committed by non-

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democratic regimes. The book’s main objectivesconcern a fresh, contemporary, and critical analysisof transitional criminal justice as a concept and itsrelated measures, beginning with the initiatives thathave been put in place with the fall of theCommunist regimes in Europe in 1989.

The project argues for rethinking and revisitingfilters that scholars use to interpret main issues oftransitional criminal justice, such as: therelationship between judicial accountability,democratisation and politics in transitionalsocieties; the role of successor trials in rewritinghistory; the interaction between domestic andinternational actors and specific initiatives inshaping transitional justice; and the paradox of timein enhancing accountability for human rightsviolations. In order to accomplish this, the volumeconsiders cases of domestic accountability in thepost-1989 era, from different geographical areas,such as Europe, Asia and Africa, in relation to keyevents from various periods of time. In this way theapproach, which investigates space and time-linesin key examples, also takes into account alongitudinal study of transitional criminal justiceitself.

Hinton, Devon Emerson & Alexander LabanHinton (eds.). Genocide and Mass Violence.Memory, Symptom and Recovery. Cambridge2015

What are the legacies of genocide and massviolence for individuals and the social worlds inwhich they live, and what are the local processes ofrecovery? Genocide and Mass Violence aims toexamine, from a cross-cultural perspective, theeffects of mass trauma on multiple levels of a groupor society and the recovery processes and sourcesof resilience. How do particular individuals recallthe trauma? How do ongoing reconciliationprocesses and collective representations of thetrauma impact the group? How does the traumapersist in 'symptoms'? How are the effects oftrauma transmitted across generations in memories,rituals, symptoms, and interpersonal processes?What are local healing resources that aid recovery?To address these issues, this book brings intoconversation psychological and medicalanthropologists, psychiatrists, psychologists andhistorians. The theoretical implications of thechapters are examined in detail using severalanalytic frameworks.

Keiler, Johannes & David Roef (eds.).Comparative Concepts of Criminal Law.Intersentia 2015.

Comparative Concepts of Criminal Law is uniquein the sense that it introduces the reader to the

fundamental concepts and rules of substantivecriminal law in a comparative way and not just tothe criminal law system of one specific jurisdiction.Compared with other fields of law, like contractand property law, comparative research into the so-called general part of criminal law is quite a recentphenomenon within academia, never mindtransmitting this knowledge to students of law. Theincreasing ‘Europeanisation’ of criminal law andpolicy makes such a comparative approach evenmore necessary.

This handbook therefore fills a legal educationalgap by exploring basic concepts of substantivecriminal law in three major European legal systems:the common law system of England and Wales andthe civil law systems of Germany and theNetherlands. Each chapter focusses on a specificconcept or doctrine that is necessary to determinecriminal liability (e.g. actus reus, mens rea,defences, inchoate offences). Throughout the bookthe authors also highlight and discuss some recentlegislative and judicial developments that broadenthe scope of criminal liability in our modern cultureof control.

This book is not only invaluable for students, butalso for legal practitioners who want to broadentheir knowledge of criminal law.

Ostojić, Mladen. 2014. Between justice and stability. The Politics of War CrimesProsecutions in Post-Milošević´ Serbia. Ashgate 2014

Exploring the impact of the International CriminalTribunal (ICTY) on regime change in Serbia, thisbook examines the relationship betweeninternational criminal justice and democratisation.It analyses in detail the repercussions of the ICTYon domestic political dynamics and provides anexplanatory account of Serbia’s transition todemocracy.

Lack of cooperation and compliance with the ICTYwas one of the biggest obstacles to Serbia’sintegration into Euro-Atlantic political structuresfollowing the overthrow of Milošević. By scrutinising the attitudes of the Serbian authoritiestowards the ICTY and the prosecution of warcrimes, Ostojić explores the complex processes set in motion by the international community’s policiesof conditionality and by the prosecution of theformer Serbian leadership in The Hague. Drawingon a rich collection of empirical data, hedemonstrates that the success of internationaljudicial intervention is premised upon democraticconsolidation and that transitional justice policiesare only ever likely to take root when they do not

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undermine the stability and legitimacy of politicalinstitutions on the ground.

Contents: Preface; Introduction: internationaljustice and transitional democracy; Setting thecontext: Serbia’s protracted transition; Regimechange and the politics of cooperation with theICTY; International justice, state responsibility andtruth-telling; Domestic war crimes trials;Conclusion: an ambivalent legacy.

Palmer, Nicola. Courts in conflict. Interpretingthe Layers of Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda.Oxford University Press 2015

The rise of international criminal trials has beenaccompanied by a call for domestic responses toextraordinary violence. Yet there is remarkablylimited research on the interactions among local,national, and international transitional justiceinstitutions. Rwanda offers an early example ofmulti-level courts operating in concert, through theconcurrent practice of the United NationsInternational Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda(ICTR), the national Rwandan courts, and thegacaca community courts.

Courts in Conflict makes a crucial and timelycontribution to the examination of these pluralistresponses to atrocity at a juncture when holisticapproaches are rapidly becoming the policy norm.Although Rwanda's post-genocide criminal courtsare compatible in law, an interpretive culturalanalysis shows how and why they have oftenconflicted in practice. The author's research isderived from 182 interviews with judges, lawyers,and a group of witnesses and suspects within allthree of the post-genocide courts. This richempirical material shows that the judges andlawyers inside each of the courts offer notablydifferent interpretations of Rwanda's transitionaljustice processes, illuminating divergent legalcultures that help explain the constraints on thecourts' effective cooperation and evidencegathering. The potential for similar competitionbetween domestic and international justiceprocesses is apparent in the current practice of theInternational Criminal Court (ICC). However, thiscompetition can be mitigated through increasedcommunication among the different sites of justice,fostering legal cultures of complementarity that canmore effectively respond to the needs of affectedpopulations.

The book is meant for transitional justice andinternational criminal law professors and scholars;legal and political professors, and scholars workingon the subject of Rwanda's post-genocide courts.

Seiberth, Corinna. Private Military and SecurityCompanies in International Law. A Challengefor Non-binding Norms: The MontreuxDocument and the International Code ofConduct for Private Security Providers.Intersentia 2015.

Winner of the Ciardi Prize 2015

Many states view Private Military and SecurityCompanies (PMSCs) as crucial to implement theirsecurity policy. However, reoccurring incidents ofhuman rights violations have led the internationalcommunity, private sector and civil society toacknowledge the need for more control over the useof PMSCs. Growing state support for TheMontreux Document and an ever growing numberof signatory companies to the International Code ofConduct for Private Security Service Providers(ICoC) show that self-regulation through non-binding norms has shifted to the centre of thisdebate.

This book examines the promises and dangers ofemerging non-binding PMSC regulation alongsidemore traditional forms of law-making such as plansfor an international convention on the use ofPMSCs. It offers in-depth analysis of legal andpolitical developments that led to the proliferationof The Montreux Document and the ICoC.Identifying the state side of duties and corporateresponsibility as leaving gaps and grey zones ininternational law, it analyses how both instrumentsaddress the responsibility to protect and theresponsibility to respect. Covering the PrivateSecurity Providers' Association's Articles ofAssociation, the most recent developments on theestablishment of a PMSC oversight mechanism areincluded.

Finally, the book provides an original theory ofhow both instruments could become more effectiveto protect victims against PMSC human rightsviolations; The Montreux Document by developinginto a form of customary international law, thestandards of the ICoC framework by developinginto more binding normative standards as a form of'corporate custom'.

Straus, Scott. Making and Unmaking NationsWar, Leadership, and Genocide in ModernAfrica. Cornell University Press 2015

In Making and Unmaking Nations, Scott Strausseeks to explain why and how genocide takes place– and, perhaps more important, how it has beenavoided in places where it may have seemed likelyor even inevitable. To solve that puzzle, heexamines postcolonial Africa, analyzing countriesin which genocide occurred and where it could have

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but did not. Why have there not been otherRwandas? Straus finds that deep-rooted ideology –how leaders make their nations – shape strategies ofviolence and are central to what leads to or awayfrom genocide. Other critical factors include thedynamics of war, the role of restraint, and theinteraction between national and local actors in thestaging of campaigns of large-scale violence.

Grounded in Straus's extensive fieldwork incontemporary Africa, the study of major twentieth-century cases of genocide, and the literature ongenocide and political violence, Making andUnmaking Nations centres on cogent analyses ofthree non-genocide cases (Côte d’Ivoire, Mali, andSenegal) and two in which genocide took place(Rwanda and Sudan). Straus’s empirical analysis isbased in part on an original database of presidentialspeeches from 1960 to 2005. The book alsoincludes a broad-gauge analysis of all major casesof large-scale violence in Africa sincedecolonization. Straus’s insights into the causes ofgenocide will inform the study of political violenceas well as giving policymakers and nongovernment-al organizations valuable tools for the future.

Swaan, Abram de. The Killing CompartmentsThe Mentality of Mass Murder. Yale UniversityPress 2015.

By historical standards, the early years of thetwenty-first century have been remarkably peaceful.Only rarely are people killed by their own kind, andonly very, very rarely are they killed by otheranimals, microorganisms excepted. Nevertheless,even though the statistics should reassure, manypeople worry about lone killers, murderous gangs,and terrorist bands. At the same time, most peopleare vaguely aware that even in this relatively calmera, wars have made countless victims.

Yet mass violence against unarmed civilians hasclaimed three to four times as many lives in the pastcentury as war: one hundred million at least, andpossibly many more. These large-scale killingshave required the efforts of hundreds of thousandsof perpetrators. Such men (and almost all weremales) were ready to kill, indiscriminately, formany hours a day, for days and weeks at a stretch,and sometimes for months or even years.

Unlike common criminals who work outside themainstream of society, in secret, on their own orwith a few accomplices, mass murderers almostalways worked in large teams, with full knowledgeof the authorities and on their orders. Withoutexception, they operated within a supportive socialcontext, most often firmly embedded in theinstitutions of the ruling regime. Unlike terrorists,

the mass murderers usually did not want their deedsto be widely known.

How people are enrolled in the service of evil is aquestion that lies at the heart of this trenchant book.The subject here is mass annihilation – that is,massive, asymmetric violence at close range, wherekillers and victims are in direct confrontation.Abram de Swaan offers a taxonomy of massviolence that focuses on the rank-and-fileperpetrators, examining how murderous regimesrecruit them and create what De Swaan calls the“killing compartments” that make possible theworst abominations without apparent moralmisgiving, without a sense of personalresponsibility, and, above all, without pity.

De Swaan wonders where extreme violence comesfrom and where it goes – seemingly without a trace– when the wild and barbaric gore is over. Andwhat about the perpetrators themselves? Are theymerely and only the product of externalcircumstance? Or is there something in theirmakeup that helps them become mass murderers?Drawing on a wide range of disciplines, includingsociology, anthropology, political science, history,and psychology, De Swaan sheds light on an urgentand seemingly intractable pathology that continuesto poison peoples all over the world.

Weller, Marc & and Alexia Solomou (eds.). TheOxford Handbook of the Use of Force inInternational Law. Oxford 2015

This Oxford Handbook provides the mostcomprehensive, authoritative, and detailed studyinto the use of force in international law yetavailable.

Over sixty experts offer an unparalleled assessmentof the law of the use of force from a range of inter-disciplinary perspectives.

Investigates key recent controversies in this field,including forcible humanitarian action and pro-democratic intervention, the expansiveinterpretation of self-defence, the ability of non-state actors to mount armed attacks of significantscale and destructive power, and the doctrine ofexceptionalism.

Some other books published recently

Anstett, E. & J.M. Dreyfus (Eds.) (2015). Humanremains and mass violence – methodologicalapproaches, Manchester University Press.

El-Hal. J. (2013). The Nazi and the psychiatrist –Hermann Göring, Dr. Douglas Kelley and a fatal

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meeting of minds at the end of WWII, PublicAffairs.

Gill, P. (2015). Lone-actor terrorists – a behaviouralanalysis, Routledge.

Hamm, M. (2014). The spectacular few – prisonerradicalization and the evolving terrorist threat, NewYork University Press.

Mariniello, T. (2015). The International CriminalCourt in search of its purpose and identity,Routledge

Meierhenich, J. (ed) Genocide – a reader, OxfordUniversity Press.

Ohlin, J.D. (2015). The assault on international law,Oxford University Press.

Palmer, N. (2015). Courts in Conflict – interpretinglayers of justice in post-genocide Rwanda, OxfordUniversity Press

Stern, J. & J.M. Berger (2015). ISIS – the state ofterror, William Collins.

Swaan, A. de (2015). The killing compartments –the mentality of mass murder, Yale UniversityPress.

Triffterer, O. and K. Ambos (2015). Commentaryon the Rome statute of the International CriminalCourt, Oxford and Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft.

Waschefort C.A., International Law and childsoldiers, Hart Publishing.

Weiss, M. & H. Hassan (2015). ISIS – Inside thearmy of terror, Regan Arts.

A Selection of Journal Articles

Bolhuis, M. & J. van Wijk (2015). Alleged warcriminals in the Netherlands: excluded from refugeeprotection, wanted by the prosecutor, EuropeanJournal of Criminology

Brody, R. (2015). Bringing a dictator to justice: thecase of Hissene Habré, JICJ.

Brouwer, A.M. (2015). The importance ofunderstanding sexual violence in conflict forinvestigation and prosecution purposes, CornellInternational Law Journal 48(3).

Brouwer, A.M. (2015) The problem of witnessinterference before international criminal tribunals,ICLR 15(4) 1-33.

Jentzsch, C., S.N. Kalyvas and L.I. Schubiger(2015). Militias in civil war, Journal of ConflictResolution, 1-15.

Hola, B. & J. van Wijk (2014). Life afterconviction: an empirical analysis, JICJ, 109-132.

Kelder, J. B. Hola & J. van Wijk (2014).Rehabilitation and early release of perpetrators ofinternational crimes: a case study of ICTY andICTR, ICLR 14(6). 1177-1203.

Luban, D. (2015). Arendt on the crime of crimes,Georgetown University Law Centre.

Pemberton, A., R. Letschert, A.M. de Brouwer andR.H. Haveman (2015). Coherence in internationalcriminal justice: a victimological perspective, ICLR15(2), 339-368.

Robinson, D. (2015). Inescapable Dyads: Why theInternational Criminal Court Cannot Win." LeidenJournal of International Law 28(2), 323-347.

Maystre, M. (2014). The Interaction betweenInternational Refugee Law and InternationalCriminal Law with Respect to Child Soldiers,Journal of International Criminal Justice 12(5),975-996.

Muleefu, A. (2014). Reparation for victims ofcollateral damage: a normative and theoreticalinquiry, Wolf Legal Publishers.

Napoleoni, L. (2015). The Islamic Phoenix: theIslamic State and redrawing of the Middle East,Seven Stories

Oosterveld, V. (2014). Sexual violence directedagainst men and boys in armed conflict or massatrocity: addressing a gendered harm ininternational criminal tribunals, Journal ofInternational Law and International Relations

Rowen, J. & J. Hagan (2014) Using social scienceto frame international crimes, Journal ofInternational Law and International Relations 10,107-128.

Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2015).The Senate Intelligence Committee report onTorture, Melville House.

Sivakumaran, S. (2014). Exclusion from refugeestatus: the purpose and principles of the UnitedNations and Article 1F of the Refugee Convention,International Journal of Refugee Law 26(3), 350-381.

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Shaked, M. (2015). The unknown Eichmann Trial:the story of the judge, Holocaust and GenocideStudies 29(1), 1-36.

Slahi, Mohamedou Ould (2015). Guantanamo diary– one man’s account of rendition, torture, anddetention without charges at the hands of the US,Little, Brown and Company.

Smeulers, A. (2015). Female perpetrators –ordinary or extra-ordinary women, InternationalCriminal Law Review 15(2), 207-253

Smeulers, A., M. Weerdesteijn, B. Hola (2015).The Selection of Situations by the ICC: anempirically based evaluation of the OTP’sperformance, International Criminal Law Review15 (1), p. 1-39.

Stepakoff, S. G.S. Reynold and S. Charters and N.Henry (2014) Why testify? Witness’ motivationsfor giving evidence in a war crimes tribunal inSierra Leone, the Journal of transitional justice 8,426-451.

Tiernay, M. (2015). Killing Kony – leadershipchange and civil war termination, Journal ofConflict Resolution 59(2) 175-206.

Wood, R.M. (2014). Opportunities to kill orincentives for restraint? Rebel capabilities, theorigins of support and civilian victimization in civilwar, Conflict Management and Peace Science31(5), 461-480.

MISCELLANEOUS

The International Crimes Database(ICD)

The International Crimes Database (ICD) invitessubmissions of short articles for publication in theonline paper series of the ICD, the ICD Briefs.

The ICD is an online database, launched in 2013,and is hosted and maintained by the T.M.C. AsserInstituut in The Hague and supported by theNetherlands Ministry of Security and Justice andthe International Centre for Counter-Terrorism –The Hague. It is furthermore supported by manyprestigious international legal institutions, such asthe International Court of Justice, the InternationalCriminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, theInternational Criminal Court and the InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross.

The online ICD article series ICD Briefs is anotherway in which the website provides in-depthinformation and insights to visitors through a series

of short articles on topics related to internationalcrimes and international criminal jurisprudence. Inaddition, the series offers scholars and practitionersthe opportunity to make their work available to aninternational network of ICD users. Some of ourICD Briefs have even been included in the PeacePalace Library’s collection. For this series, we arenow publishing a call for abstracts.

Please send an abstract of your submission (500words, incl. brief biographies or author affiliations)to editors@internationalcrimesdatabase.org by 1July. Please also include a CV with yoursubmission. Authors of selected abstracts will beinformed by 15 July. Selected authors should beprepared to submit a full paper for review by 1October. The ICD editorial team will decide whichof the full papers will be published on the ICDwebsite.

JusticeInfo.net

Fondation Hirondelle recently launched the firstbilingual (English and French) media ofinternational scope covering justice andreconciliation processes following state crimes andmass violence.

JusticeInfo.net is a partnership between FondationHirondelle, Oxford Transitional Justice Research(OTJR) and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative(HHI). It aims to be the go-to international mediaon transitional justice. JusticeInfo.net believes thatjustice and reconciliation processes should go handin hand with the right to information. But intransitional societies, especially those of the South,access to sources of confirmed and documentedinformation often remains difficult. Justiceinfo.netaims to respond to this need amongst thepopulations of transitional societies, and also to theneeds of local and international decision-makers,researchers and all those who are interested in thesefundamental issues.

Justiceinfo.net is an independent, electronic mediaplatform providing reports and analysis on what ishappening in transitional societies. Justiceinfo.netprovides regular coverage of truth commissions,war crimes trials, reparations and reconciliationprogrammes, and ways of dealing with the past.Justiceinfo.net tells how wounded societies arerebuilding, how they are punishing crimes, howthey are learning to forgive. These are keycrossover issues touching on justice and politics,law and ethics, that come up in all peace andreconciliation processes. From Colombia to Nepal,South Africa to the Balkans, what is at stake is offundamental importance. The way the past is dealtwith defines the values of the present and societalchoices that affect the future.

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As well as bringing news, Justiceinfo.net willprovide analysis, debate, discussion, opinion andbackground. It will provide diverse content,including text, audio, video and infographics, inEnglish and French. We encourage sharing of ourfreely reusable content.

Justiceinfo.net has the collaboration of FondationHirondelle journalists working in its different media(mostly radio stations), as well as a network ofinternational correspondents.

contact@JusticeInfo.net

Regular updates via Twitter

If you do not want to wait for the digital newsletterwhich is only published twice a year you can followregular updates of new books, articles anddatabases via twitter.https://twitter.com/AletteSmeulers

If you want to get regular updates on the HisseinHabré case you can follow Thijs Bouwknegt@thijsbouwknegt

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The newsletter will be sent electronically to all whohave signed up on the website. Scholars whoconduct research in the field of international crimes,such as genocide, war crimes, crimes againsthumanity and other gross human rights violations,international (criminal) law or any other relevantsubject matter are invited to send us their detailsand they will be enlisted on the website.

In case you are interested: please contact us:Roelof.haveman@gmail.com and give your names,position, institutional affiliation, e-mail address,research interest and website and we will enlist youas a scholar within two weeks.

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EDITORIAL BOARD

Roelof Haveman, roelof.haveman@gmail.com(Editor-in-chief) (in Bamako, Mali)

Alette Smeulers, Tilburg University and Universityof Groningen, a.l.smeulers@tilburguniversity.edu

Barbora Holà, VU University, Amsterdam,b.hola@vu.nl

Thijs Bouwknegt, NIOD Institute for War,Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Amsterdam,Thijs.Bouwknegt@gmail.com

James Nyawo, Humanitarian Practitioner/Researcher, j_nyawo@hushmail.com (in Khartoum,Sudan)

Deadline next issue: 1st December 2015

Please send submissions for the newsletter to:Roelof.haveman@gmail.com