International Criminal Justice: State of Play

Fifteen years after the passage of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), we stand at several crossroads. Support for personal criminal responsibility for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes remains robust in many parts of the world, yet the ICC faces considerable obstacles and universal jurisdiction of national courts is in a period of retrenchment Although general amnesties are no longer the standard fare of negotiated peace agreements, realistic accountability measures are difficult to enact, more so even to implement. Contributors to this report include distinguished legal practitioners, scholars, and international activists who seek to utilize or challenge the viability of the concept of criminal liability for large-scale acts of political violence. Among the topics they address are the underlying assumptions of international justice (ICJ), empirical evidence of ICJ's effectiveness, challenges of enforcement, politics of opposition to ICJ, and possibilities for reform.