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Current opinion pieces ask broad questions such as "Is the ICC worth it" while only focusing on a specific aspect of the ICC such as its budget or the work of the Office of the Prosecutor. Given the incredibly complex nature of human rights violations as well as the difficulty in assembling an international regime to deal with them, answering such questions requires a more complete analysis of the Court's functions, dynamics, and predecessors. The background chapter that discussed trends in international judicial organizations leading up to the creation of the ICC examined the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal, the interregnum national commissions, the Spanish Universal Jurisdiction system, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, addressing key pitfalls that such organizations faced (including victors' justice and unilateralism) while noting how the ICC's policies and structure differed from its predecessors'. The dynamics chapter highlighted eight key elements currently affecting how the Court works– the member states who have ratified the Rome Statute, the Court's ability to apprehend criminals, the international response to ICC actions, how prosecutions may be initiated, the explicit and implicit functions of the Court, its consensus policymaking, the Court's budget and finances, and the role of the United States. With these dynamics in mind, the policy alternatives chapter recommended three actions that could serve to strengthen the ICC's capabilities – increasing its member states, increasing compliance with its warrants through different types of international agreements, and increasing its budget to be able to handle more cases. Following these policy alternatives to their likely outcomes in the policy forecast section, I analyzed how they would affect the ICC's effectiveness, its ability to gain more member states, and the member states themselves. Through this more comprehensive analysis that takes into account the external and internal factors affecting the ICC, this thesis offers realistic ways that the ICC can improve its capabilities and achieve its mission of ending impunity for war criminals.

When should a commander be held responsible for the crimes of those under his control? Must a commander have known, or is it enough that he should have known, that his subordinates had committed or were about to commit a crime before we impose criminal responsibility on him for failing to prevent or punish those crimes? In attempting to answer these questions, the very foundations of criminal responsibility are set out and form the normative framework within which our examination of the command responsibility doctrine is undertaken. The historical evolution and modern-day application of the command responsibility doctrine are also set out and draws upon two themes; whether there is any justification for the distinction between the responsibility of military and civilian commanders and which mens rea standard should be adopted for the doctrine of command responsibility.

The Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has taken steps to define and develop its prosecution policies. Review of these policies reveals that the OTP prefers to act on referrals of situations by states and the Security Council, rather than to employ its proprio motu investigatory powers. While the OTP has effectively defined the threshold for the gravity of the crimes that it will prosecute, a number of other discretionary criteria that inform the OTP's exercise of jurisdiction remain undefined. Additionally, the OTP's acceptance of state 'waivers of complementarity' moves in the direction of establishing a quasi-exclusive jurisdiction for the OTP. This thesis will critically evaluate these policies, and propose a recasting of the OTP's prosecution strategy towards the promotion of domestic war crimes prosecutions. It posits that the ICC OTP can act as a catalyst for domestic war crimes prosecutions, by serving in an advisory and support role. The OTP thus has the opportunity to breathe life into the complementarity regime and advance the global struggle against impunity.

This thesis examines article 69(7) of the Rome Statute, which creates an exclusionary rule for improperly obtained evidence at the International Criminal Court (ICC). Ultimately, the thesis proposes how the ICC should interpret its exclusionary rule. The thesis discusses the theory underlying exclusionary rules, the evidence law and remedial law contexts within which exclusionary rules operate, and numerous comparative examples of exclusionary doctrine from within national criminal justice systems. Finally, some unique aspects of international criminal procedure are described in order to demonstrate how an international exclusionary rule might need to differ from a domestic rule, and previous jurisprudence relating to exclusionary rules at other international criminal tribunals is surveyed. The thesis ends by articulating what a basic test for exclusion at the ICC should look like, and examines how such a rule would operate in respect of all of the different exclusionary doctrines discussed earlier in the thesis.

Thesis (LL.M.). / Written for the Faculty of Law. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2008/05/13). Includes bibliographical references.

Boston University. University Professors Program Senior theses. / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-02

Magister Legum - LLM