Grotius Centre hosts its first successful Marie Curie Network Conference
On Saturday 15 March 2008, the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies hosted its first Marie Curie Network Conference. The Conference attracted a capacity audience at the Campus The Hague. Speakers and participants included Judges from the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), leading academics, practitioners, participants of the Marie Research Courses and the Marie Curie Top Summer Schools, as well as guests from the Hague community and academic institutions in the Netherlands and abroad.
The Conference provided fresh insights on the development and challenges of international criminal justice. Judge Mauro Politi (ICC) gave an overview of the achievements of the ICC and some of the conceptual choices arising in the Court’s first practice, including its relationship to domestic jurisdictions. Judge Van den Wyngaert (ICTY) presented an insider’s perspective on the legacy, record and jurisprudential developments of the ad hoc tribunals. Professor Kai Ambos (University of Göttingen) analysed the merits and implications of the move from an ad hoc based to a permanent and universal system of criminal justice.
The subsequent panel discussed trends in substantive, procedural and institutional criminal law. Professor William Schabas highlighted existing inconsistencies in the treatment of genocide and the need for a state plan or policy-based interpretation of the crime. Dr Hector Olasolo (ICC) revisited the foundations and conceptions of modes of liability in contemporary international criminal law. Professor Goran Sluiter (University of Amsterdam) discussed developments in the law of international criminal procedure and importance of human rights norms in the interpretation of procedural regimes (e.g. Article 21, paragraph 3 ICC Statute). Professor Niels Blokker (Leiden University) analysed the foundations and modalities of the relationship between the Security Council and the ICC.
The respective presentations were followed by animated discussion between panelists, Marie Curie scholars and the audience. The conference raised challenging questions concerning the sources (e.g. customary international law), actors (e.g. role of victims), approaches (e.g. state-based v. individual-based conception of atrocity crimes) and the operation of international criminal law (e.g. the impact of multi-level jurisdiction), some of which will be explored more fully in a forthcoming publication on Future Perspectives on International Criminal Justice (TMC Asser Press, eds. Carsten Stahn & Larissa van den Herik) and the Marie Curie Research Course on the Diversification and Fragmentation of International Criminal Law in 2008-2009.
For other photos of the conference please click here.
For further information on the next Research Course click here.
