The International Law of War Crimes (Ll211)
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THE INTERNATIONAL LAW OF WAR CRIMES (LL211) Course duration: 54 hours lecture and class time (Over three weeks) LSE Teaching Department: Department of Law Lead Faculty: Professor Gerry Simpson (Dept. of Law) Pre-requisites: Introduction to legal methods or equivalent. (Basic legal knowledge is a requirement. This would be satisfied by, among other things, Professor Lang’s LL105 course in the previous session). Introduction The following provides a course outline, list of lecture topics and sample readings. Use the list to familiarize yourself with the range and type of materials that will be used. Please note that the full reading lists and tutorial discussion questions will be provided at the start of the course. Welcome to this Summer School course in The International Law of War Crimes. The course will consist of twelve three-hour lectures and twelve one-and-a-half-hour classes. It will examine the law and policy issues relating to a number of key aspects of the information society. 1 The course examines, from a legal perspective, the rules, concepts, principles, institutional architecture, and enforcement of what we call international criminal law or international criminal justice, or, sometimes, the law of war crimes. The focus of the course is the area of international criminal law concerned with traditional “war crimes” and, in particular, four of the core crimes set out in the Rome Statute (war crimes, torture as a crime against humanity, genocide and aggression). It adopts an institutional (Nuremberg, Rwanda, the Former Yugoslavia), philosophical (Arendt, Shklar) and practical (the ICC) focus throughout. There will be a particular focus on war crimes trials and proceedings e.g. Eichmann, Milosevic, Pinochet and Goering et al. Course outcomes At the end of the course, students should be able to: . Critically evaluate ongoing developments in international criminal law. Demonstrate an understanding of how these developments relate to one another and to global politics more generally. Understand some of the political and philosophical dilemmas surrounding the decision to convene war crimes trials. Evaluate theories of international criminal law Course content is subject to change. Last updated: December 2016 Course Materials and On-line Support: This course is supported by a Moodle site. Once the course begins operation (i.e. from the 1st day of the course) you will be able to access the site via http://shortcourses.moodle.lse.ac.uk. This site will contain copies of handouts and lecture slides as well as coursework requirements. It will be updated regularly and online assignments may be posted via this page. If you need instruction on using Moodle please follow the online guides at http://shortcourses.moodle.lse.ac.uk. Students will be expected to check the Moodle site on a regular basis. Course Assessment: The course will be assessed by means of one two-hour unseen examination to be held during the examinations period on the last Friday, at a time to be advised by the Summer School Office. In addition you will be required to submit one summative essay of no more than 2000 words by Thursday of week two of teaching. You will also receive feedback on two pieces of formative coursework to be completed in weeks one and two 2 of the course. This feedback will help with your summative work and your exam preparation. Recommended Reading: The recommended textbook is: Simpson: Law, War and Crime (Polity 2007). Texts for Reference Purposes: Kevin Jon Heller, The Nuremberg Military Tribunals and the Origins of International Criminal Law (2011). Kenneth Anderson, ‘The Rise of International Criminal Law: Intended and Unintended Consequences’ 20 (2) European Journal of International Law (2009) 331 at www.ejil.org Mark Osiel, Making Sense of Mass Atrocity, Cambridge University Press, 2009. Judith Shklar, Legalism, (1964) Course content is subject to change. Last updated: December 2016 Maurice Hankey, Politics, Trials, Errors (1950) Christine Schwobel, Critical Approaches to International Criminal Law: An Introduction (2015) Sam Moyn, The Last Utopia, (2010) Mark Lewis, The Birth of the New Justice: The Internationalization of Crime and Punishment, 1919-1950 (2014). Gerry Simpson, “Atrocity, Law, Humanity” in Cambridge Companion to Human Rights Law (eds. Gearty and Douzinas), 2013. F. Jessberger and J. Geneuss, “Down the Drain or Down to Earth? International Criminal Justice under Pressure” J. Int Criminal Justice (2013) 11 (3): 501-503 David Luban, “After the Honeymoon: Reflections on the Current State of International Criminal Justice” J Int Criminal Justice (2013) 11 (3): 505-515 Payam Akhavan, “The Rise, and Fall, and Rise, of International Criminal Justice” J Int Criminal Justice (2013) 11 (3): 527-536 Naomi Roht-Arriaza ”Just a ‘Bubble’?: Perspectives on the Enforcement of International Criminal Law by National Courts” J Int Criminal Justice (2013) 11 (3): 537-543 William A. Schabas “The Banality of International Justice”, J. Int Criminal Justice (2013) 11 (3): 545-551 3 Kirsten Sellars, “Delegitimizing Aggression: First Steps and False Starts after the First World War” J Int Criminal Justice (2012) 10 (1): 7-40 Gary Bass, Stay the hand of vengeance: the politics of war crimes tribunals (2000) For those who want a deeper background, the key English-language works in contemporary international law and theory in general, in no particular order, are Martti Koskenniemi’s From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument, (1989) and (2007, which contains an indispensable epilogue) and his The Gentle Civiliser of Nations (2002); Philip Allott, Eunomia (1997); David Kennedy’s Of Law and War, “Spring Break” and “The Move to Institutions”; Tony Anghie’s Sovereignty; Chris Reus-Smit’s The Moral Theory of the State; Carl Schmitt’s The Nomos of the Earth; James Crawford’s The Creation of States; Susan Marks’ The Riddle of all Constitutions (2003); Tom Franck’s Fairness in International Law (1995); Gerry Simpson’s, Great Powers and Outlaw States (2004); Martin Wight’s “Western Values”; Sundhya Pahuja’s Decolonising International Law (2011) and Anne Orford’s, International Authority and the Responsibility to Protect. Crawford and Koskenniemi, The Cambridge Companion to International Law (2012) is the defining current collection of essays. Susan Marks’ edited volume, International Law on the Left, Fleur Johns et al, Events: The Force of International Law, and Anne Orford’s edited volume International Law and its Others, each contain some excellent work. Course content is subject to change. Last updated: December 2016 Media It is also important to read at least one newspaper or journal with a good coverage of international affairs, such as The Guardian, The Economist, The New Left Review, the London Review of Books, The New York Times or Le Monde Diplomatique, or the International Herald Tribune, or to subscribe to the BBC News Feed. Other Recommended Reading: (1) Source Material International Legal Materials (ILM) is published six times a year with a wide variety of contemporary documents; the International Law Reports (ILR) contains the English text of most major cases; there are notes on Australian practice in the Australian Yearbook of International Law, British State practice in the British Year Book of International Law (BY), on United States practice in the American Journal of International Law (AJ) and on contemporary issues in the ‘Current Developments’ section of the International and Comparative Law Quarterly (ICLQ). 4 (2) Periodicals and Law Reports Journal of International Criminal Justice at http://jicj.oxfordjournals.org/ The principal general international law periodicals to which reference will be made are: AJ American Journal of International Law [AMER] (also available electronically) BY British Year Book of International Law [K 1 BRIT] CLJ Cambridge Law Journal [CAMB] (available electronically) EJIL European Journal of International Law [EURO] (also available electronically) ICLQ International and Comparative Law Quarterly [INTE] (also available electronically) LQR Law Quarterly Review [LAW] LRIL London Review of International Law MJIL Melbourne Journal of International Law [MELB] Course content is subject to change. Last updated: December 2016 MLR Modern Law Review [MODE] RC Receuil de cours (text of lectures given at the Hague Academy) Decisions of courts are reported in the main systems of law reports. International decisions are usually in the following series: ICJ International Court of Justice Reports (eg ICJ Reps, 1996, p. 457) ILR International Law Reports (eg 98 ILR 456 – arranged by volume number, not date) (3) Websites Dozens of websites provide information on international law but the following are particularly useful: ICTY: www.icty.org ICC: https://www.icc-cpi.int/ The Hague Justice Portal http://www.haguejusticeportal.net/index.php?id=1974 5 United Nations: http://www.un.org International Court of Justice: http://www.icj-cij.org American Society of International Law: http://www.asil.org Lauterpacht Research Centre: http://www.law.cam.ac.uk/rcil/home European Journal of International Law: http://www.ejil.org Course content is subject to change. Last updated: December 2016 Lecture Outline: Week One Subject Lecture Date Concepts of International What is going on in international criminal law? Why is Mon Criminal Law there so much of it? What happened when it didn’t yet exist (i.e. prior to, say, 1919)? What has changed? Are these unequivocally positive developments? Why international criminal