Setting Limits to Judicial Discretion in Interpreting Crimes. The Role of the Legality Principle at the International Criminal Court.

Korte beschrijving

This thesis examines how the legality principle (article 22 Rome Statute) sets limits to the judicial interpretation of crimes and evaluates, through two case studies, whether the ICC judiciary has respected those legality limits. From a positivistic and Hartian inspired framework, this study proposes to understand the judicial interpretative process as constituting a two-dimensional functional relation between the applicable law and methods of interpretation. Both dimensions are evaluated in terms of the legality principle. Moreover the study, examines the interpretative result through the principle of strict construction and fair labelling. The first case study evaluates the judicial interpretation of the organisational policy element as a contextual element of crimes against humanity. The second case study evaluates the judicial interpretations of practices referred to as forced marriage and assesses the use of crime labels such as the residual categories of ‘other inhumane acts’ and ‘other sexual violence’ in relation to the categorization of forced marriage practices.