Content area
Full Text
Criminal Law Forum (2016) 27:537544 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2016
DOI 10.1007/s10609-016-9295-2
http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s10609-016-9295-2&domain=pdf
Web End = http://crossmark.crossref.org/dialog/?doi=10.1007/s10609-016-9295-2&domain=pdf
Web End = RUSTAM B. ATADJANOV*
BOOK REVIEW
Ignaz Stegmiller, The Pre-Investigation Stage of the ICC: Criteria for Situation Selection, Berlin:Duncker& Humblot, 2011,624 pp., ISBN.
The judicial system introduced with the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC), the pivotal organization of the international criminal justice at the forefront of the ght against impunity, has been increasingly attracting much attention, from both practitioner and academic audiences. The ICC Statutes1 carefully balanced framework mechanism is now being put to the actual test as the number of cases and situations the Court is dealing with gradually rises.2 One of the areas which are being studied and discussed in depth by professionals as well as scholars is the preliminary examination phase or pre-investigation stage, as the reviewed books author terms it (other areas include, non-
* Rustam B. Atadjanov is presently a Dr. Jur. (PhD) candidate in ICL at the University of Hamburg. This review reects the opinions of the author alone. E-mail: [email protected]
1 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, adopted 17 July 1998, entered into force 1 July 2000, full text available at https://www.icc-cpi.int/about/otp/Pages/otp-policies.aspx
Web End =https://www.icc-cpi.int/resource- https://www.icc-cpi.int/about/otp/Pages/otp-policies.aspx
Web End =library/Documents/RS-Eng.pdf (last visited 1 October 2016) [hereinafter ICC Statute].
2 There are presently 9 ongoing preliminary examinations, 10 situations under investigation and 13 ongoing cases at the ICC. For a more detailed information in this regard, see the Courts ocial website at: https://www.icc-cpi.int/about/otp/Pages/otp-policies.aspx
Web End =https://www.icc-cpi.int/pages/pre https://www.icc-cpi.int/about/otp/Pages/otp-policies.aspx
Web End =liminary-examinations.aspx (last visited 1 October 2016).
http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6801-1556
Web End = Reviewing
538
RUSTAM B. ATADJANOV
exhaustively: substantive crimes under the Courts jurisdiction, exercise of its jurisdiction, questions of admissibility, applicable general principles of criminal law, fair trial guarantees, international cooperation and States support for the ICC, enforcement matters, and so on). And the central issue which has to be inevitably addressed by the Courts Prosecutor during this phase is how to choose those cases out of analyzed situations that will make it to the trial. In other words, on which criteria must the Prosecutor base his/her conclusions as to why a particular situation reaches, or not, the level of the case to be processed for the trial? Understandably, this...