Dr Devika Hovell

This course is available on the LLM (extended part-time), LLM (full-time), MSc in Human Rights and University of Pennsylvania Law School LLM Visiting Students. This course is available with permission as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit.

This course has a limited number of places and demand is typically high. This may mean that you’re not able to get a place on this course.

This course examines the practice and procedure of international criminal law. Rather than examining the history and core crimes, the course focuses on the law, theory and politics impacting the process of legalised retribution entailed in the prosecution of international crimes. The course aims to provide opportunity for critical thought and analysis of the concept of international criminal responsibility and the various fora developed for the prosecution of international crimes, including the ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, ‘hybrid’ tribunals such as the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia and domestic prosecution using the concept of universal jurisdiction. The latter half of the course will centre on the International Criminal Court, focusing in particular on questions, theory and case law surrounding modes of liability, immunities, defences and state cooperation. While we will take historical, theoretical and critical approaches to such questions, the aim is also to provide the opportunity to examine current contemporary challenges and controversies affecting the practice and procedure of international criminal law.

This course will have two hours of teaching content each week in Winter Term. There will be a Reading Week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

One 2,000 word essay.

Reading lists will be provided for each week’s seminar on Moodle. Indicative reading includes Jose Alvarez, ‘Crimes of States/Crimes of Hate: Lessons from Rwanda’ (1999) 24 Yale Journal of International Law 365; Henry Kissinger, ‘The Pitfalls of Universal Jurisdiction’, Foreign Affairs (July 2001); Darryl Robinson, ‘Inescapable Dyads: Why the International Criminal Court Cannot Win’ (2015) 28 Leiden Journal of International Law 323; Sara Kendall and Sarah Nouwen, 'Representational Practices: The Gap Between Juridified and Abstract Victimhood' (2013) 76(3) Law and Contemporary Problems 235. Students may wish to refer to Robert Cryer et al., An Introduction to International Criminal Law and Procedure (Cambridge, 2019), 4th edition.

Exam (100%, duration: 2 hours, reading time: 15 minutes) in the spring exam period.