General Principles of Law in the Decisions of International Criminal Courts and Tribunals

Fabián O. Raimondo is Assistant Professor of Public International Law at Erasmus University Rotterdam and a member of the List of Counsel before the International Criminal Court. He studied at the Faculty of Law, National University of La Plata (Argentina), where he obtained his law degree in 1990 and his master’s degree in international relations in 2002. In 2007 he obtained his doctor’s degree at the University of Amsterdam.

• Preface Abbreviations Arbitral Awards and Judicial Decisions Chapter 1: Introduction Chapter 2: General Principles of Law: A Source of International Law 2.1. Preliminary Remarks; 2.2. Early International Arbitral Tribunals; 2.2.1. The Formulation of Applicable Law; 2.2.2. Five Examples from before the Adoption of the PCIJ Statute; 2.2.3. A Brief Analysis of International Practice; 2.3. The PCIJ and the ICJ; 2.3.1. The Adoption of the PCIJ Statute; 2.3.2. The Scope of Article 38; 2.3.3. How to Find General Principles of Law in the Judgments and Advisory Opinions of the PCIJ and the ICJ; 2.3.4. Eight Judgments and Advisory Opinions; 2.3.5. An Analysis of the Judgments and Advisory Opinions; 2.4. The Autonomy of General Principles of Law as a Source of International Law; 2.4.1. Scholarly Views on General Principles as a Formal Source of International Law; 2.4.2. General Principles as a Formal and Material Source of International Law; 2.4.3. A Subtle Difference between General Principles of Law and General Principles of International Law; 2.5. The Subsidiary Nature of General Principles of Law; 2.6. The Determination of General Principles of Law; 2.6.1. The ‘Vertical Move’; 2.6.2. The ‘Horizontal Move’; 2.6.3. The Absence of Comparative Legal Research in PCIJ and ICJ Practice; 2.7. The Transposition of General Principles of Law; 2.7.1. Application by Analogy; 2.7.2. Traditional Arguments against Transposition; 2.7.3. The ‘Special Character’ of International Law; 2.7.4. Structural Differences between International Law and National Legal Systems; 2.7.5. Transposition to New Branches of International Law; 2.8. Concluding Remarks Chapter 3: General Principles of Law in the Decisions ofInternational Criminal Courts and Tribunals3.1. Preliminary Remarks; 3.2. Early International Criminal Tribunals; 3.2.1. The IMT; 3.2.2. The IMTFE; 3.3. Contemporary International Criminal Courts and Tribunals; 3.3.1. The ICTY; 3.3.2. The ICTR; 3.3.3. The ICC; 3.3.4. The SCSL Chapter 4: Analysis of Practice and of Relevant Scholarly Writing 4.1. The Autonomy of General Principles of Law as a Source of International Criminal Law; 4.1.1. General Principles of Law as a Formal Source of International Criminal Law; 4.1.2. General Principles of Law as a Formal and Material Source of International Criminal Law; 4.1.3. A Difference between Three Sets of Legal Principles?; 4.2. A Subsidiary Source of International Criminal Law?; 4.3. The Determination of General Principles of Law; 4.3.1. Recourse to Judicial Decisions and Scholarly Writing; 4.3.2. The ‘Vertical Move’; 4.3.3. The ‘Horizontal Move’; 4.3.4. Last Observations on the Issue of Determination; 4.4. The Transposition of General Principles of Law; 4.4.1. Substantive and Procedural Criminal Law; Analogies; 4.4.2. The Problems of Transposition; 4.5. Concluding Remarks Chapter 5: Conclusions BibliographyIndex