From Reprisals to Criminal Accountability: State Bias and the Prospects of Limiting War Through Law
In: European Review of International StudiesSearch for other papers by Pablo Kalmanovitz in
Current site
Google Scholar
Abstract
Over the past 25 years, criminal prosecutions for war crimes have become a central element in the long-standing project of governing hostilities in international law. According to many, the threat of criminal prosecutions can be a general deterrent against violations of the laws of war, and can contribute more broadly to the diffusion and domestic appropriation of humanitarian norms. This article discusses some unintended effects of this “anti-impunity turn” in the laws of war in the context of non-international armed conflicts. Specifically, it examines the consequences of the fact that states typically have a monopoly over the means of legitimate criminal investigation for alleged crimes committed in their territory. Far from operating on a level playing field, criminal investigations in war contexts must be undertaken under institutional conditions that tend to favor state agents over non-state opposition groups. The article spells out some implications of this form of state bias and argues that it can contribute to exacerbate conflict and prolong violence in war.
Purchase
Buy instant access (PDF download and unlimited online access):
Institutional Login
Log in with Open Athens, Shibboleth, or your institutional credentials
Personal login
Log in with your brill.com account
-
Akhavan, Payam. 2001. “Beyond Impunity: Can International Justice Prevent Future Atrocities?” American Journal of International Law no. 95 (1).
-
Alexander, Amanda. 2015. “A Short History of International Humanitarian Law.” The European Journal of International Law no. 26 (1).
-
Anaya, Alejandro. 2014. “Communicative Interaction Between Mexico and Its International Critics Around the Issue of Military Jurisdiction: “Rhetorical Action” or “Truth Seeking Arguing”?” Journal of Human Rights no. 13:434–455.
-
Andreu-Guzmán, Federico. 2004. Military Jurisdiction and International Law. Geneva: International Commission of Jurists.
-
Bassiouni, Cherif. 2008. “The new wars and the crisis of compliance with the law of armed conflict.” Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology no. 98 (3).
-
Benvenisti, Eyal. 2010. “The Law on Asymmetric Warfare.” In Looking to the Future: Essays on International Law in Honor of Michael Reisman, edited by Arsanji Mahnoush, Cogan Jacob Katz, Sloane Robert and Wiessner Siegfried, 931–950. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff.
-
Berman, Nathaniel. 2004. “Privileging Combat? Contemporary Conflict and the Legal Construction of War.” Columbia Journal of Transnational Law no. 43(1):1–72.
-
Best, Geoffrey. 1980. Humanity in Warfare. New York: Columbia University Press.
-
Best, Geoffrey. 1994. War and Law Since 1945. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
-
Bohrer, Ziv, Janina Dill, and Helen Duffy. 2020. The Law Applicable to Armed Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Bull, Hedley. 1966. “The Grotian conception of international society.” In Diplomatic investigations: essays in the theory of international politics, edited by Butterfield Herbert and Wight Martin. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
-
Burgorgue-Larsen, Laurence, and Amaya Úbeda de Torres. 2011. ‘War’ in the Jurisprudence of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.” Human Rights Quarterly no. 33.
-
Burke-White, William. 2008. “Proactive Complementarity: The International Criminal Court and National Courts in the Rome System of International Justice.” Harvard International Law Journal vol. 49(1): 53–108.
-
Cançado Trindade, Antonio. 1997. “Derecho Internacional de los Derechos Humanos, Derecho Internacional de los Refugiados y Derecho Internacional Humanitario: Aproximaciones y Convergencias.” Estudios Internacionales no. 119/120.
-
Chinkin, Christine, and Mary Kaldor. 2017. International Law and New Wars. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Clark, Phil. 2008. “Law, Politics and Pragmatism: The ICC and Case Selection in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda.” In Courting Conflict? Justice, Peace and the ICC in Africa, edited by Waddell Nicholas and Clark Phil. London: The Royal African Society.
-
Clark, Ian, Sebastian Kaempf, Christian Reus-Smit, and Emily Tannock. 2018. “Crisis in the laws of war? Beyond compliance and effectiveness.” European Journal of International Relations no. 24(2): 310–43.
-
Cogan, Jacob Katz. 2002. “International Criminal Courts and Fair Trials: Difficulties and Prospects.” Yale Journal of International Law vol 27: 111–140.
-
CVR. 2003. Comisión de la Verdad y Reconciliación: Informe Final. Lima, Peru.
-
Dancy Geoff, and Florencia Montal. 2017a. “From Law versus Politics to Law In Politics:A Pragmatist Assessment of the ICC’s Impact.” American University International Law Review no. 32(3): 645–705.
-
Dancy Geoff, and Florencia Montal. 2017b. “Unintended Positive Complementarity: Why International Criminal Court Investigations may Increase Domestic Human Rights Prosecutions.” The American Journal of International Law vol. 111(3): 698–723.
-
Dill, Janina. 2015. Legitimate Targets? Social Construction, International Law and US Bombing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Dill, Janina, and Henry Shue. 2012. “Limiting the Killing in War: Military Necessity and the St. Petersburg Assumption.” Ethics & International Affairs no. 26 (3): 311–333.
-
Drumbl, Mark. 2007. Atrocity, punishment, and international law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Engle, Karen. 2016. “A Genealogy of the Criminal Turn in Human Rights.” In Anti-Impunity and the Human Rights Agenda, edited by Engle Karen, Miller Zenaida and Davis D.M.. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Evangelista, Matthew. 2020. “The Pitfalls and Promises of Human Rights Claims in Chechnya.” ERIS: The European Review of International Studies 7:2/3.
-
Ferdinandusse, Ward. 2009. “The prosecution of grave breaches in national courts.” Journal of International Criminal Justice no. 7.
-
Fleck, Dieter. 2008. “The law of non-international armed conflicts.” In The Handbook of International Humanitarian Law, edited by Fleck Dieter. Oxford University Press.
-
Harouel, Véronique. 1999. “Aux Origines de la Justice Pénale Internationale: La pensée de Moynier.” Revue Historique de Droit Français et Étranger 77(1): 71–83.
-
Henckaerts, Jean-Marie, and Louise Doswald-Beck. 2007. Customary International Humanitarian Law. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Henckaerts, Jean-Marie, and Louise Doswald-Beck. 2009. Customary International Humanitarian Law. Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Hull, Isabel. 2014. A scrap of paper: Breaking and making international law during the Great War. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
-
Huneeus, Alexandra. 2013. “International Criminal Law by other Means: The Quasi-Criminal Jurisdiction of the Human Rights Courts.” American Journal of International Law no. 107 (1).
-
Hutchinson, John. 1996. Champions of charity: War and the rise of the Red Cross. Boulder: Westview Press.
-
Ibánez Rivas, Juana María. 2016. “El Derecho Internacional Humanitario en la Jurisprudencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos.” Revista de Derecho del Estado no. 36.
-
ICRC. 2009. Interpretive Guidance on the Notion of Direct Participation in Hostilities under International Humanitarian Law Geneva: International Committee of the Red Cross.
-
Jakobs, Günther. 2014. “On the Theory of Enemy Criminal Law.” In Foundational Texts in Modern Criminal Law, edited by Dubber Markus. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Jo, Hyeran. 2015. Compliant Rebels Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Kalmanovitz, Pablo. 2018. “Entre el Deber de Protección y la Necesidad Militar: Oscilaciones del Discurso Humanitario en Colombia, 1991–2016” in Latin American Law Review no. 1(1) (2018).
-
Kalmanovitz, Pablo. 2020. The Laws of War in International Thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Kalshoven, Frits. 2007 [1990]. “Belligerent reprisals revisited.” In Reflection on the law of war: Collected Essays, edited by Kalshoven Frits. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers.
-
Kant, Immanuel. 1996 [1797]. The Metaphysics of Morals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Kennedy, David. 2006. Of war and law. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
-
Koselleck, Reinhart. 1988. Critique and Crisis. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
-
Koskenniemi, Martti. 2002. “The Lady Doth Protest Too Much: Kosovo and the Turn to Ethics in International Law.” Modern Law Review no. 65.
-
Kress, Claus, and Frédéric Mégret. 2014. “The regulation of non-international armed conflicts: Can a privilege of belligerency be envisioned in the law of non-international armed conflicts?” International Review of the Red Cross no. 96 (893): 29–66.
-
La Haye, Eve. 2008. War Crimes in Internal Armed Conflicts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Lamp, Nicholas. 2011. “Conceptions of war and Paradigms of Compliance: The ‘New War’ challenge to Humanitarian Law.” Journal of Conflict and Security Law no. 16 (2).
-
Lewis, Mark. 2014. The birth of the new justice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Mavrodes, George I. 1975. “Conventions and the morality of war.” Philosophy and Public Affairs no. 4 (2).
-
Mégret, Frederic. 2011. “War and the Vanishing Battlefield.” Loyola University Chicago International Law Review no. 9 (1):131–155.
-
Meron, Theodor. 2000. “The Humanization of Humanitarian Law.” American Journal of International Law no. 94 (2).
-
Milanovic, Marko. 2012. “Al-Skeini and Al-Jedda in Strasbourg.” The European Journal of International Law no. 23 (1).
-
Morrow, James. 2014. Order within Anarchy: Cambridge University Press.
-
Neff, Stephen C. 2005. War and the law of nations: a general history. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.
-
Nouwen, Sarah. 2013. Complementarity in the Line of Fire: The Catalysing Effect of the International Criminal Court in Uganda and Sudan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Ohlin, Jens David. 2016. Theoretical Boundaries of Armed Conflicts and Human Rights. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Pattison, James. 2018. “The Case for the Nonideal Morality of War: Beyond Revisionism versus Traditionalism in Just War Theory.” Political Theory 46(2): 242–268.
-
Peeler, Bryan. 2019. The Persistence of Reciprocity in International Humanitarian Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Posner, Eric. 2013. “Human Rights, the Laws of War, and Reciprocity.” Law & Ethics of Human Rights no. 6 (2):147–171.
-
Sandoz, Yves. 2009. “The History of the Grave Breaches Regime.” Journal of International Criminal Justice no. 7.
-
Schmitt, Carl. 2003. The nomos of the earth in the international law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum. New York: Telos Press.
-
Shue, Henry. 2008. “Do we Need a ‘Morality of War’?” In Just and Unjust Warriors: The Moral and Legal Status of Soldiers, edited by Rodin David and Shue Henry. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Shue, Henry. 2010. “Laws of War.” In The Philosophy of International Law, edited by Besson Samantha and Tasioulas John. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Stanton, Jessica. 2016. Violence and Restraint in Civil War: Civilian Targeting in the Shadow of International Law Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
-
Stewart, James. 2009. “The Future of the Grave Breaches Regime: Segregate, Assimilate or Abandon?” Journal of International Criminal Justice no. 7.
-
Tannenwald, Nina. 2017. “Assessing the Effects and Effectiveness of the Geneva Conventions.” In Do the Geneva Conventions Matter?, edited by Evangelista Matthew and Tannenwald Nina. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
-
Teitel, Ruti. 2011. Humanity’s law. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
-
Vattel, Emer de. 2008 [1758]. The law of nations. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund.
-
Walzer, Michael. 1977. Just and unjust wars: A moral argument with historical illustrations. New York: Basic Books.
-
Walzer, Michael. 2004. Arguing about war. New Haven: Yale University Press.
-
Weiner, Allen. 2017. “Just War Theory & the Conduct of Asymmetric Warfare.” Daedalus no. 146 (1).
-
Weisbord, Noah. 2019. The Crime of Aggression: The Quest for Justice in an Age of Drones, Cyberattacks, Insurgents, and Autocrats. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
-
Witt, John Fabian. 2012. Lincoln’s code: The laws of war in American history. New York; London: Free Press.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 251 | 49 | 8 |
| Full Text Views | 17 | 4 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 35 | 11 | 1 |
From Reprisals to Criminal Accountability: State Bias and the Prospects of Limiting War Through Law
In: European Review of International StudiesSearch for other papers by Pablo Kalmanovitz in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed
Abstract
Over the past 25 years, criminal prosecutions for war crimes have become a central element in the long-standing project of governing hostilities in international law. According to many, the threat of criminal prosecutions can be a general deterrent against violations of the laws of war, and can contribute more broadly to the diffusion and domestic appropriation of humanitarian norms. This article discusses some unintended effects of this “anti-impunity turn” in the laws of war in the context of non-international armed conflicts. Specifically, it examines the consequences of the fact that states typically have a monopoly over the means of legitimate criminal investigation for alleged crimes committed in their territory. Far from operating on a level playing field, criminal investigations in war contexts must be undertaken under institutional conditions that tend to favor state agents over non-state opposition groups. The article spells out some implications of this form of state bias and argues that it can contribute to exacerbate conflict and prolong violence in war.
| All Time | Past Year | Past 30 Days | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Abstract Views | 251 | 49 | 8 |
| Full Text Views | 17 | 4 | 0 |
| PDF Views & Downloads | 35 | 11 | 1 |