This volume examines the underexplored relationship between philosophy and international criminal law, disciplines commonly separated despite their shared engagement with truth, responsibility, and judgment.
This volume examines the underexplored relationship between philosophy and international criminal law, disciplines commonly separated despite their shared engagement with truth, responsibility, and judgment. Philosophical inquiry has long analyzed concepts central to criminal adjudication, yet these insights have rarely informed international criminal trial practice. Consequently, notions such as intent, causation, qualia, fairness, truth, dignity, luck, and amnesty are often employed in conceptually thin or imprecise ways. Treating these notions simultaneously as legal requirements, forms of deliberative reasoning, and subjects of contemporary philosophical debate, the book demonstrates how philosophy can clarify, discipline, and strengthen international legal reasoning. The discussions, written by philosophically and scientifically informed scholars and experienced international law practitioners, revisit foundational philosophical ideas, critically reassess their assumptions, and translate them into operational tools for international criminal jurisprudence. Through close engagement with doctrinal practice and trial reasoning, the contributors address persistent conceptual gaps and unresolved interpretive difficulties that have shaped past and ongoing proceedings. The volume aims to expand the analytical resources available to judges, prosecutors, defense counsel, investigators, and scholars. It ultimately presents international criminal law as a form of applied philosophy, arguing that rigorous philosophical analysis can enhance the coherence, fairness, and practical effectiveness of international criminal law practice worldwide.
Foreword, William A. Schabas; Introduction, Wibke K. Timmermann and
Predrag Dojinovi; PART I: Definitions: Matters of Proof and Elements of
Crimes;
1. Between the Divine Image and Radical Freedom: Conceptualizing and
Applying Human Dignity in International Criminal Law, Wibke K. Timmermann;
2.
Deciphering Conundrums of Intent, Carl-Friedrich Stuckenberg;
3. Forbidden
Intentions: Purpose, Pretext, and Double Effect in International Humanitarian
Law, Alexander K.A. Greenawalt;
4. Rethinking the Winds of Causation:
Philosophical Foundations and Legal Applications in International Criminal
Trials, Predrag Dojinovi; PART II: The Search for Truth: The Importance of
Understanding the Reasons for International Crimes;
5. Injecting the Concepts
of Qualia and Lebenswelt into War Crimes Trials, Anna Vyshniakova and
Volodymyr Volkovskyi;
6. Truth in War Crimes Trials, Yvonne McDermott;
7.
Moral Luck, Legal Luck, and the Prosecution of Former Child Soldiers, Shannon
Fyfe;
8. The Banality of Personal Motives in International Criminal Trials,
Juan Pablo Calderon Meza; PART III: The Search for Justice and
Reconciliation;
9. Phenomenology and Atrocity Victims, Gregory S. Gordon and
Ryan Martínez Mitchell;
10. Srebrenica, Conscience, and the Search for
Justice at the ICTY/IRMCT, Dan Saxon;
11. Global Justice Beyond Punishment,
Margaret M. DeGuzman and Katherine McAuliffe;
12. The Reconciliation Goal of
International Criminal Tribunals: Towards a Theory of Indirect Impact, Sigall
Horovitz;
13. Amnesties and Pardons at the International Criminal Court,
Meritxell Regué; PART IV: The Point of It All: Whither International Criminal
Justice?;
14. Fairness: Between Justice, Beauty and Whiteness?, Frédéric
Mégret;
15. The ICC between Law and Power: Past, Present, Future?, Yael Vias
Gvirsman;
16. The 'Oneness of Humanity' as the Starting Point for
International Criminal Justice, Rod Rastan.
Wibke K. Timmermann is a criminal lawyer at Legal Aid Western Australia. She previously served as Legal Officer at the Prosecutors Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
Predrag Dojinovi is an Adjunct Professor and Research Affiliate at the Gladstein Family Institute of Human Rights, University of Connecticut, and a consultant with three decades of experience in international criminal trials.
