This paper focuses on the criticism that tribunals such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)2, by virtue of their reliance on customary law and other methods of determining existing norms, appear to violate the …

This article analyses how international criminal courts and tribunals have pronounced on the contextual elements of their respective war crimes provisions. A comprehensive overview of the way these institutions treated the material scope of application of ihl shows that the ad hoc tribunals tended to …

This article examines the legal status of armed forces present in friendly foreign territory with a special focus on criminal jurisdiction. Traditionally, this issue has been considered from the perspective of public international law in which immunities play an important role. However, this perspective …

In the aftermath of the 1994 genocide in Rwanda the government decided to set up a "genocide divisionism" campaign in order to eradicate all ethnicity in the country and hereby prevent a new outburst of ethnic violence. The consequent established "genocide ideology" laws are highly criticised by non-governmental …

In March 2012, an atrocity was committed in two villages in the Kandahar Province of Afghanistan. One night, an American soldier entered three houses and killed sixteen people, including women and children. In response to this violent outburst of one of its soldiers, the United States (US) authorities …