LAW499

Letter Grading

GPA LECTURE COURSES

This survey course of international criminal law will emphasize the historical development of the modern "system" of international courts and tribunals. First, the course aims to impart a critical appreciation of the evolution of international criminal law and international humanitarian law by appraising the legal heritage of World War I and II, in particular the International Military Tribunals of Nuremberg and Tokyo. The International Criminal Court, the ad hoc Tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda and the internationalized Courts of Sierra Leone and Cambodia are the descendants of those earlier tribunals, though as the course will explore, they are also creatures of their time bound by their own constitutive statutes and institutional mechanisms. Second, the course will examine the substantive contours and evolutionary trajectory of the international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression. And, in particular, we will consider how these crimes have permitted accountability for sexual violence and other gendered crimes especially. The course will identify the governing legal doctrines and the intersection of international criminal law with international humanitarian law and international human rights law. The modes of individual liability to international crimes, such as superior responsibility, joint criminal enterprise or co-perpetration and aiding and abetting, will be studied critically. Finally, by reading excerpts from seminal international criminal case law, students will gain familiarity with the judicial reasoning that has advanced the field of international criminal law while identifying areas that have left the judiciary divided or where legal lacuna persist.