This comprehensive Companion examines the achievements and challenges of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the world's first permanent international criminal tribunal. It provides an overview of the first two decades of the ICC's existence, investigating the dominant narratives and counter-narratives that have emerged about the institution and its work. In this timely work, an international team of scholars and experts evaluate the ICC's actual and potential role in the world by exploring some of the central issues related to its creation, mandate, and operations. Chapters address topics ranging from the negotiation dynamics surrounding the drafting of the Rome Statute, to the roles of the Office of the Prosecutor, judges, defence and victims, as well as key controversies around peace and justice, selectivity of cases and situations, and gender-sensitivity. This Companion is critical reading for scholars, students and practitioners of international criminal law. Its mixture of theoretical perspectives and case study analysis will also be of interest to those studying and working in global justice and international law more broadly, including in transitional justice, human rights law, public international law and international relations.

The last few decades have seen remarkable developments in international criminal justice, especially in relation to the pursuit of individuals responsible for sexual violence and other gender-based crimes. Historically ignored, justified, or minimised, this category of crimes now has a heightened profile in the international political and judicial arena. Despite this, gender is poorly understood, and blind spots, biases, and stereotypes prevail. This book brings together leading feminist international criminal and humanitarian law academics and practitioners to examine the place of gender in international criminal law (ICL). It identifies and analyses past and current narrow understandings of gender, before considering how a limited conceptualization affects accountability efforts. The authors consider how best to implement a more nuanced understanding of gender in the practice of international criminal law by identifying possible responses, including embedding a sophisticated gender strategy into the practice of ICL, the gender-sensitive application of international human rights and humanitarian law, and encouraging a gender-competent approach to judging in ICL. The authors' aim is to strengthen efforts for accountability for all atrocity crimes-war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and aggression.

This book explores and challenges common assumptions about gender, conflict, and post-conflict situations. It critically examines the gendered aspects of international and transitional justice processes by subverting traditional understandings of how wars are waged, the power dynamics involved, and the experiences of victims. The book also highlights the gendered stereotypes that underpin the (mis)perceptions about gender and war in order to reveal the multi-dimensional nature of modern conflicts and their aftermaths.Featuring contributions from academics in law, criminology, international relations, politics and psychology, as well as legal practitioners in the field, Gender and War offers a unique and multi-disciplinary insight into contemporary understandings of conflict and explores the potential for international and transitional justice processes to evolve in order to better acknowledge diverse and gendered experiences of modern conflicts.This book provides the reader with international and interdisciplinary perspectives on issues of international law, conflict, gender and transitional justice.

Giving Meaning to Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights Edited by Isfahan Merali and Valerie Oosterveld The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, arguably the founding document of the human rights movement, fully embraces economic, social, and cultural rights, as well as civil and political rights, within its text. However, for most of the fifty years since the Declaration was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations, the focus of the international community has been on civil and political rights. This focus has slowly shifted over the past two decades. Recent international human rights treaties--such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women--grant equal importance to protecting and advancing nonpolitical rights. In this collection of essays, Isfahan Merali, Valerie Oosterveld, and a team of human rights scholars and activists call for the reintegration of economic, social, and cultural rights into the human rights agenda. The essays are divided into three sections. First the contributors examine traditional conceptualizations of human rights that made their categorization possible and suggest a more holistic rights framework that would dissolve such boundaries. In the second section they discuss how an integrated approach actually produces a more meaningful analysis of individual economic, social, and cultural rights. Finally, the contributors consider how these rights can be monitored and enforced, identifying ways international human rights agencies, NGOs, and states can promote them in the twenty-first century. Isfahan Merali is Legal Counsel of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. Valerie Oosterveld is a Legal Officer with the Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights 2001 280 pages 6 1/8 x 9 1/4 3 illus. ISBN 978-0-8122-3601-9 Cloth $49.95s 32.50 World Rights Law, Political Science, Social Science, General