Cultural defences, i.e. claims that certain aspects of a defendant’s cultural background should be taken into consideration by courts when adjudicating on their guilt or innocence, have been raised before domestic courts in a variety of jurisdictions. This has been a very sensitive and controversial issue. However, the issue of cultural defences at international tribunals is one that has not yet been fully explored. The main objective of this book is to analyse if the International Criminal Court can, and should, accommodate cultural defences as answers to legal charges, or if the Court should accommodate cultural considerations in other ways.

This pioneering book explores the intersections of law and culture at the International Criminal Court (ICC), offering insights into how notions of culture affect the Court’s legal foundations, functioning and legitimacy, both in theory and in practice.

Without question, international criminal law (ICL) has become a legal growth industry. Regional supranational systems, such as the European Union, are beginning to prepare a genuine supranational criminal law that may supersede the national jurisdictions. These efforts are still in their infancy, but along with the creation of the prosecutorial framework and measures like e.g. the European Arrest Warrant, EUROPOL or EUROJUST, the defence lawyers are preparing themselves for the new challenge. It is thus useful and necessary to cover these developments from the get go. This collection of cases and materials attempts for the first time to provide a compendium of the most important legal texts, relevant documents and cases, as well as explanatory commentary on the law of defence in international criminal proceedings by scholars and practitioners who have a wealth of relevant experience in the field. The book provides students in law school courses on international human rights law and ICL with the essential materials to understand the vital importance of an adequate defence in international criminal proceedings. Further, the text gives legal practitioners who may consider extending their field of practice to the international level a look at the diversity of the tasks they will encounter and prepare them for the legal culture shock inevitable at the international tribunals and courts. This book is available for classroom adoption - $95/copy for 10 or more copies. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.

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.

Publisher's description: In a trial in California, Navajo defendants argue that using the hallucinogen peyote to achieve spiritual exaltation is protected by the Constitution's free exercise of religion clause, trumping the states' right to regulate them. An Ibo man from Nigeria sues Pan American World Airways for transporting his mother's corpse in a cloth sack. Her arrival for the funeral face down in a burlap bag signifies death by suicide according to the customs of her Ibo kin, and brings great shame to the son. In Los Angeles, two Cambodian men are prosecuted for attempting to eat a four month-old puppy. The immigrants' lawyers argue that the men were following their own "national customs" and do not realize their conduct is offensive to "American sensibilities." What is the just decision in each case? When cultural practices come into conflict with the law is it legitimate to take culture into account? Is there room in modern legal systems for a cultural defense? In this remarkable book, Alison Dundes Renteln amasses hundreds of cases from the U.S. and around the world in which cultural issues take center stage-from the mundane to the bizarre, from drugs to death. Though cultural practices vary dramatically, Renteln demonstrates that there are discernible patterns to the cultural arguments used in the courtroom. The regularities she uncovers offer judges a starting point for creating a body of law that takes culture into account. Renteln contends that a systematic treatment of culture in law is not only possible, but ultimately more equitable. A just pluralistic society requires a legal system that can assess diverse motivations and can recognize the key role that culture plays in influencing human behavior. The inclusion of evidence of cultural background is necessary for the fair hearing of a case.

In an area of law so thoroughly politicized, culturally freighted and passionately punitive, there is need for an extraordinary measure of protection for the accused if we are to pay more than lip service to justice. Defenses in Contemporary International Criminal Law ventures farther into this uneasy territory than any previous work, offering a meticulous analysis of the case law in the post World War II Military Tribunals and the ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia, with particular attention to the defenses developed, their rationales, and their origins in various municipal systems. It analyzes the defense provisions in the charters and statutes underlying these tribunals and the new International Criminal Court. Dr. Knoops' conceptual reach not only includes the defenses recognized in the field's jurisprudence and scholarship (superior orders, duress, self-defense, insanity, necessity, immunity of States) but also presents a strong case for the incorporation of genetic and neurobiological data into the working assets of the international criminal defense attorney. Published under the Transnational Publishers imprint.

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