Guilty Associations: Joint Criminal Enterprise, Command Responsibility, and the Development of International Criminal Law
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Guilty Associations: Joint Criminal Enterprise, Command Responsibility, and the Development of International Criminal Law Allison Marston Dannert and Jenny S. MartinezT TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction ....... .......................... ............... 77 I. Framing International Criminal Law ................................................. 80 A. Domestic Criminal Law ............................................................ 82 B . H um an Rights ........................................................................... 86 C. Transitional Justice .................................................................. 90 II. International Criminal Law at the Crossroads: Establishing Legitim acy .................................................................. 96 Il1. Joint Criminal Enterprise and Command Responsibility: D octrine and H istory ......................................................................... 102 A. The Development of Joint Criminal Enterprise .......................... 103 1. The Tadk Decision: The ICTY Embraces JCE ................... 104 2. JCE, Conspiracy, and Organizational Liability in World War II-era Prosecutions ............................................. 110 a. JCE/Common Plan/Common Design Liability .............. 110 b. Crim inal Organizations .................................................. 112 c. C onspiracy ..................................................................... 114 Copyright © 2005 California Law Review, Inc. California Law Review, Inc. (CLR) is a California nonprofit corporation. CLR and the authors are solely responsible for the content of their publications. f Associate Professor, Vanderbilt University Law School. I Assistant Professor, Stanford Law School. The authors would like to thank the members of the ICTY judiciary and the staff of the Office of the Prosecutor who agreed to be interviewed in connection with this Article. We also gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Rebecca Brown, Mariano-Florentino Cudllar, Mark Drumbl, Donald Hall, Laurence Heifer, Mark Kelman, Nancy King, Mark Osiel, William Schabas, Robert Weisberg and Beth Van Schaack for helpful criticism of earlier drafts. This Article also benefited from presentations at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of International Law, Washington & Lee University School of Law, and Boalt Hall's International Law Workshop. For superior research assistance, we thank Emily Urban of the Vanderbilt Law School Library, Phillip Riblett of Vanderbilt Law School, Elizabeth Muli of Stanford Law School, as well as Paul Lomio and Erica Wayne of the Stanford Law School Library. We are also grateful to the editors of the CaliforniaLaw Review. CALIFORNIA LA W REVIEW [Vol. 93:75 d. Nuremberg Revisited: Contemporary JCE, Conspiracy, and Criminal Organizational Liability ....... 117 B. The Development of Command Responsibility .......................... 120 1. D octrinal O verview .............................................................. 120 2. The Origins of Command Responsibility Doctrine .............. 122 3. Evolution of Command Responsibility Doctrine ................. 124 a. Mens Rea Requirement .................................................. 125 b. Superior-Subordinate Relationship Requirement .......... 130 IV. Applying the Framework: Joint Criminal Enterprise and Com m and Responsibility .................................................................. 131 A . Joint Crim inal Enterprise .............................................................. 132 1. Influence of Human Rights .................................................. 132 2. R esponses to C ritics ............................................................. 137 3. The Argument for a More Limited JCE ............................... 142 B. Comm and Responsibility ............................................................ 146 C. Suggestions for Reform .............................................................. 149 1. JCE: Requiring a Substantial Contribution .......................... 150 2. Specific Intent Crim es .......................................................... 151 3. The Relationship Between JCE and Command R esponsibility ....................................................................... 15 1 V. The Future of Joint Criminal Enterprise and Command Responsibility in International and Domestic Adjudication ............. 154 A . Other International Courts .......................................................... 154 1. The Continuing Vitality of Joint Criminal Enterprise .......... 154 2. Command Responsibility: The Example of Abu Ghraib ..... 156 B. Domestic Prosecution of International Terrorists ....................... 159 C onclu sion .............................................................................................. 166 2005] GUILTY ASSOCIATIONS Guilty Associations: Joint Criminal Enterprise, Command Responsibility, and the Development of International Criminal Law Allison Marston Danner and Jenny S. Martinez Contemporary internationalcriminal law is largely concerned with holding individual defendants responsiblefor mass atrocities.Because the crimes usually involve the concerted efforts of many individuals, allocating responsibility among them is of critical importance. This Article examines two liability doctrines-joint criminal enterprise and command responsi- bility-that play a central role in that allocation of guilt in international criminal tribunals. The Article posits a generalframework for understand- ing the development of internationalcriminal law as an outgrowth of three legal traditions: domestic criminal law, international human rights law, and transitionaljustice. We explore the application of that framework to joint criminal enterprise and command responsibility doctrines and argue that viewing joint criminal enterpriseand command responsibility through the lens of our framework shows the need for certain doctrinal reforms. Finally, we discuss the application of liability doctrines developed in the context of internationalcriminal tribunals to prosecutionsfor international or transnationalcrimes in otherforums, such as domestic military tribunal prosecutions of terrorists,that do not share the same roots as international criminal law. INTRODUCTION International criminal law represents an extraordinary undertaking. Its prosecutors charge individuals with acts of unimaginable violence: mass executions, sexual enslavement, and brutal mutilations. It is not only the subject matter of international criminal trials, however, that challenges ordinary assumptions. The idea of applying legal rules and standards to the complex and chaotic backdrop of contemporary armed conflicts and episodes of mass atrocity is a bold-some would say futile-effort to fix individual responsibility for history's violent march. Procedurally, international criminal law is equally ambitious. It seeks to meld two legal systems into a coherent whole; international criminal CALIFORNIA LA W REVIEW [Vol. 93:75 tribunals combine aspects of the common law adversarial system with the civil law inquisitorial system. In a formal sense, their rules of procedure and evidence draw on both legal traditions'; in a practical sense, judges schooled in the common law or the civil law reflect their system of origin in their approach to various legal problems. The combination of these two divergent traditions has led to certain tensions in doctrine and procedure.2 In this Article, we argue that, beyond the clash of the common and civil law traditions, a different and more enduring conflict emerges from the statutes, rules, and decisions of international criminal courts. Contemporary international criminal law combines three distinct traditions: international human rights law, domestic criminal law, and transitional jus- tice. Each one, to varying degrees, informs the purposes and principles of international prosecution, and their interaction creates conflicts within international criminal law itself. To illustrate these tensions in international criminal law, we examine two doctrinal areas in which they have played out-command responsibil- ity and joint criminal enterprise (JCE).3 We focus on these doctrines because they constitute two important theories of individual liability used in contemporary international criminal law; indeed, it is rare to find an in- ternational criminal case that does not involve one or both. Conceptually, I. The Yugoslav and Rwandan Tribunals, for example, take from common law systems an adversarial system for the presentation of evidence, including cross-examination. Drawing on civil law traditions, however, they also employ judges rather than juries, incorporate a more active role for the judges in questioning witnesses (and even in calling their own witnesses), draw more heavily on written evidence prepared in a pre-trial dossier, and allow for appeals by the prosecution. See Diane Marie Amann, Harmonic Convergence? Constitutional Criminal Procedure in an International Context, 75 IND. L.J. 809, 842-43 (2000) (noting that the "judges decide whether charges should go forward" and that "at trial, judges... decide guilt or innocence") (footnotes omitted); Patrick L. Robinson, Ensuring Fairand Expeditious Trials at the InternationalCriminal Tribunalfor the Former Yugoslavia, II EUR. J. INT'L L. 569, 574-79 (2000) (noting that the Trial Chamber for the Yugoslav Tribunal can summon and question witnesses, shorten the length of the parties' examination of witnesses, and order the production of additional evidence).