Content area
Full Text
Book ReviewCHRISTOPH J.M. SAFFERLING?Reviewing:Bruce Broomhall, International Justice and the International CriminalCourt Between Sovereignty and the Rule of Law, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003, 215 pp.Salvatore Zappala, Human Rights in International Criminal Proceedings,Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2003, 308 pp.Of all subjects in the eld of public international law, international criminallaw attracts the most attention. This is mainly due to the fact that with theestablishment by the United Nations of the ad hoc international criminaltribunals for the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, and thecreation of the International Criminal Court, it has become a reality. Thatpublic international law is being applied by tribunals which have the competence to issue binding decisions is after all a rather uncommon phenomenon. The sudden and radical step towards international criminal justice hasquite severe consequences on the original concept of public internationallaw. The conict is precisely that between state sovereignty and the rule oflaw as expressed in the subtitle of the reviewed publication by Broomhall.In his introduction, Broomhall elaborates on the tension that arises wheninternational crimes are in eect being prosecuted. There is the sovereigntylimiting rationale of the Nuremberg legacy on the one hand, conicting withthe sovereignty-based control over enforcement, which characterises thetraditional system, which the author calls Westphalian.1 Individualaccountability, a concept which is piercing the veil of sovereignty, is not yet? University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, Germany.1 At p. 2. There are authors who believe that the traditional concept developed
years later in the struggle between the French monarchy and the EnglishDutch
republicanism. See BALIBAR,SIND WIR BURGER EUROPAS 25 (2003), original version:
Transeuropeennes, 19992000, No. 17.Criminal Law Forum 14: 455465, 2003.
2004 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.NEW MATERIALS ON INTERNATIONAL CRIMINALJUSTICE FOR BOTH PRACTITIONERS AND ACADEMICS456C.J.M. SAFFERLINGaccepted everywhere, although the International Criminal Court may helpto develop such a culture. Which areas are the most sensitive in this regard,and how the diculties can be overcome, are the issue of this study.The book breaks down into three parts. The rst is entitled internationalcriminal law and aims at preparing the theoretical ground for the analysis ofthe practice of international criminal law that follows. This rst part itself isdivided into three sections. The rst is called scope and discusses thesubstantive law that is summarised by the term international criminal law.Of all possible meanings, the...