The Legal Personality of Individuals in International Criminal Law

Abstract

No one seriously disputes that the individual is a subject of international criminal law. But it is much less certain whether international crimes a priori entail individual responsibility, which would be in line with the ‘individualistic’ conception of international legal personality, or whether the responsibility arises a posteriori consistent with the Kelsenian approach. Following a brief account of some historical antecedents, Chapter6 provides a detailed examination of the pivotal post-Second World War trials and the subsequent development of individual responsibility for international crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and the International Criminal Court (ICC). Moreover, the chapter shows that the common practice of categorizing criminal courts as either international, internationalized, or domestic according to the ‘involvement of the international community’ ultimately rests on the orthodox ‘States-only’ conception of international legal personality.