Outside, Inside, and Courtside: Taking Stock of the ICC

The project of Professor Carsten Stahn is an ambitious one assemble the most up-to-date collection of scholarly writing from the leading voices in the eld, represent the perspectives of practitioners as well as academics, and ensure that the commentary remains intellectually distanced and fair. Since the volume touches on practically every conceivable aspect of the Court, the discussion in this review essay is structured by the books cross-cutting themes, grouped together here as external, internal, and * Tomas Hamilton is a PhD candidate at Kings College London (KCL) writing about the arms trade and international law. OUTSIDE, INSIDE, AND COURTSIDE 101 the Article 17 provisions.3 Further attention is given to the triggering mechanisms by which jurisdiction may be activated,4 and the admissibility of cases,5 as well as continuing questions surrounding immunities.6 On the broader external questions of the ICCs place on the global stage, there are thoughtful reections on the fundamental dialectic between peace and justice, a well-trodden topic,7 invigorated here by the creation of a useful analytical framework that turns on four dilemmas for the future of accountability and international justice.8 The volume goes on to consider separately the ICCs relations with various actors, through chapters dedicated to the Courts external relations with the Assembly of State Parties,9 with the African Union,10 with the UN Security Council,11 and with non-State parties.12 The Courts deterrent eects remain an important topic when discussing the ecacy of the Court in reaching its aims and purposes, with the true extent of putative deterrence remaining 3 Robinson, The Mysterious Mysteriousness of Complementarity, Criminal Law Forum. 21(1) (2010), 67102. Ambos carefully analyses the (limited) jurisprudence of the Court to date, identifying the lack of certainty over the interpretation of these provisions, noting that the existing case law does not speak to the relationship between substantial and signicant in the material element of this mode of liability, and ultimately arguing that there is no signicant dierence between these two standards, the important thing being to avoid creating liability for innitesimal contributions, following the 31 Van Sliedregt, Perpetration and Participation in Article 25(3), in ibid; Ohlin, Co-Perpetration: German Dogmatik or German Invasion?, in ibid.; Weigend, Indirect Perpetration, in ibid.; Olasolo, Forms of Accessorial Liability under Arti