Extending the ‘system’ of international criminal law? The ICC's decision on jurisdiction over alleged deportations of Rohingya people

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Kevin Walton and Fred Zaumseil, for their discussions and debates while writing this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Kip Hale currently serves as a legal advisor overseeing various atrocity crimes investigations. Previously, Kip was director of the American Bar Association’s International Criminal Court Project, and senior counsel at the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights in Washington, D.C. Prior to that, he was a prosecuting attorney at Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (Khmer Rouge Tribunal), and advised judges and defense work at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). He is currently a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Melinda Rankin is postdoctoral research fellow in the School of Political Sciences and International Studies at the University of Queensland, Australia. Earlier this year, she was Visiting Research Fellow at the Center for Global Constitutionalism at WZB Social Sciences Center Berlin (@WZB_GlobCon). She is the author of The Political Life of Mary Kaldor: Ideas and Action in International Relations (Lynne Rienner, 2017). Melinda is also an Associate at Sydney Democracy Network and lecturer at The University of Sydney.

ORCID

Melinda Rankin http://orcid.org/0000-0002-3323-8969

Notes

1 It should be noted that one Pre-Trial Chamber Judge, Perrin de Brichambaut, filed a partially dissenting opinion based, in large part, on the Prosecutor's submission not being procedurally appropriate. While Judge de Brichambaut's opinion on the technically correct procedural path is very persuasive, it was appropriate for the Pre-Trial Chamber to decide on merits of the Prosecutor's request nonetheless.

2 It should be noted that the Prosecutor did not request for jurisdiction over these additional crimes against humanity, and so this expansive interpretation of what crimes were within the jurisdiction of the ICC was forged by the Pre-Trial Chamber.

3 For instance, in June 2018, Germany's judiciary issued an arrest warrant for Jamil Hassan, the Syrian Director of Air Force Intelligence, for alleged crimes against humanity following ongoing monitoring and an investigation that commenced in the early stages of the Arab Spring in 2011. See, Jorg Diehl, Christoph Reuter, and Fidelius Schmid (2018) ‘Germany takes aim at Assad's torture boss.’ Der Spiegel, 8 June. http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/senior-assad-aid-charged-with-war-crimes-a-1211923.html