A practical guide to what motivates international crimes and how these are structured and investigated in theory and practice.

Drawing on the critical legal tradition, the collection of international scholars gathered in this volume analyse the complicities and limitations of International Criminal Law. This area of law has recently experienced a significant surge in scholarship and public debate; individual criminal accountability is now firmly entrenched in both international law and the international consciousness as a necessary mechanism of responsibility. Critical Approaches to International Criminal Law: An Introduction shifts the debate towards that which has so far been missing from the mainstream discussion: the possible injustices, exclusions, and biases of International Criminal Law. This collection of essays is the first dedicated to the topic of critical approaches to international criminal law. It will be a valuable resource for scholars and students of international criminal law, international law, international legal theory, criminal law, and criminology.

In the past twenty years, international criminal law has become one of the main areas of international legal scholarship and practice. Most textbooks in the field describe the evolution of international criminal tribunals, the elements of the core international crimes, the applicable modes of liability and defences, and the role of states in prosecuting international crimes. The Oxford Handbook of International Criminal Law, however, takes a theoretically informed and refreshingly critical look at the most controversial issues in international criminal law, challenging prevailing practices, orthodoxies, and received wisdoms. Some of the contributions to the Handbook come from scholars within the field, but many come from outside of international criminal law, or indeed from outside law itself. The chapters are grounded in history, geography, philosophy, and international relations. The result is a Handbook that expands the discipline and should fundamentally alter how international criminal law is understood.

This book adopts a critical criminological approach to analyze the production, representation and role of crime in the emerging international order. It analyzes the role of power and its influence on the dynamics of criminalization at an international level, facilitating an examination of the geopolitics of international criminal justice. Such an approach to crime is well-developed in domestic criminology; however, this critical approach is yet to be used to explore the relationship between power, crime and justice in an international setting. This book brings together contrasting opinions on how courts, prosecutors, judges, NGOs, and other bodies act to reflexively produce the social reality of international justice. In doing this, it bridges the gaps between the fields of sociology, criminology, international relations, political science, and international law to explore the problems and prospects of international criminal justice and illustrate the role of crime and criminalization in a complex, evolving, and contested international society.

Breaking the Cycle of Mass Atrocities investigates the role of international criminal law at different stages of mass atrocities, shifting away from its narrow understanding solely as an instrument of punishment of those most responsible. The book is premised on the idea that there are distinct phases of collective violence, and international criminal law contributes in one way or another to each phase. The authors therefore explore various possibilities for international criminal law to be of assistance in breaking the vicious cycle at its different junctures.

Principles of International Criminal Law is one of the leading textbooks in the field of international criminal justice. This fourth edition retains the detailed and systematic approach of previous editions, whist adding substantial new material on new theories, laws, and prosecutions.

This volume deals with the tension between unity and diversification which has gained a central place in the debate under the label of ‘fragmentation’. It explores the meaning, articulation and risks of this phenomenon in a specific area: International Criminal Justice. It brings together established and fresh voices who analyse different sites and contestations of this concept, as well as its context and specific manifestations in the interpretation and application of International Criminal Law. The volume thereby connects discourse on ‘fragmentation’ with broader inquiry on the merits and discontents of legal pluralism in ‘Public International Law’.