Interpreting Crimes in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

This book offers the first detailed analysis of, and guide to, the interpretation of international crimes defined in the Rome Statute.

Leena Grover (Author)

9781107067721, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 16 October 2014

474 pages, 1 table
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm, 0.8 kg

The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines more than ninety crimes that fall within the Court's jurisdiction: genocide, other crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression. How these crimes are interpreted contributes to findings of individual criminal liability, and moreover affects the perceived legitimacy of the Court. And yet, to date, there is no agreed-upon approach to interpreting these definitions. This book offers practitioners and scholars a guiding principle, arguments and aids necessary for the interpretation of international crimes. Leena Grover surveys the jurisprudence of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda before presenting a model of interpretive reasoning that integrates the guidance within the Rome Statute into articles 31-33 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969).

Foreword Claus Kreß
1. Introduction
2. The state of the art
Annex: aids to interpretation
3. Guiding interpretive principle
4. Challenges to the principle of legality
5. Operationalizing the principle of legality
6. Custom as an aid to interpretation
7. Internal indicia of codification
8. External indicia of codification
9. The Vienna Convention (1969) and aids to interpretation
10. Conclusions.

Subject Areas: Public international law [LBB]