Abstract
What follows is a private international lawyer’s response to the thought-provoking ideas put forward by Professor Svantesson on international jurisdiction from a criminal law perspective. This stance may in itself seem (and certainly feels!) paradoxical, since much contemporary academic effort (my own included) has been directed towards a rejection of the public/private distinction in international law. This rejection has been championed both as a normative matter, because so much would be gained from reaching ‘beyond the schism” to overcome the personality split from which the discipline has suffered for over a century, as well as a descriptive matter, since multiple issues, debates, myths and concepts straddle the divide, even if they give rise to specific disciplinary understandings on either side. Both of these observations apply to jurisdiction in all the forms mentioned by Professor Svantesson. Moreover, the need for an intradisciplinary conversation is particularly acute in respect of international limits on criminal jurisdiction, which, as Professor Svantesson’s paper seems to demonstrate, fall somewhere in-between the public and the private models (perhaps seen as logically public, but considered private in France!).
Highlights
What follows is a private international lawyer’s response to the thought-provoking ideas put forward by Professor Svantesson on international jurisdiction from a criminal law perspective.[1]
From a private international law perspective, Svantesson’s piece evokes a strong impression of déjà vu
My comment begins with this point, explores the causes of a traditional décalage in international criminal law in this respect and suggests why this matters
Summary
What follows is a private international lawyer’s response to the thought-provoking ideas put forward by Professor Svantesson on international jurisdiction from a criminal law perspective.[1] This stance may in itself seem (and certainly feels!) paradoxical, since much contemporary academic effort (my own included) has been directed towards a rejection of the public/private distinction in international law This rejection has been championed both as a normative matter, because so much would be gained from reaching “beyond the schism” to overcome the personality split from which the discipline has suffered for over a century, as well as a descriptive matter, since multiple issues, debates, myths and concepts straddle the divide, even if they give rise to specific disciplinary understandings on either side. I suggest that the changes advocated seem unlikely to fulfil their ambitious promise of paradigm renewal; I conclude with a short musing about what a radical overhaul of the law of jurisdiction would look like
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