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Cryer, Robert --- "The Philosophy of International Criminal Law" [2011] ELECD 578; in Orakhelashvili, Alexander (ed), "Research Handbook on the Theory and History of International Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Research Handbook on the Theory and History of International Law

Editor(s): Orakhelashvili, Alexander

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848443549

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: The Philosophy of International Criminal Law

Author(s): Cryer, Robert

Number of pages: 36

Extract:

9 The philosophy of international criminal law
Robert Cryer


9.1 INTRODUCTION

International criminal law is an area that recently has become the subject of significant
attention, both by lawyers and philosophers, as well as those working at the interface of
the two disciplines. Although, as is often the case, practitioners in the area are somewhat
sceptical of such inquiry, jurisprudential considerations have long been an integral, if not
always acknowledged, part of international criminal law. This is entirely appropriate;
criminal law is an area of study which has traditionally been the subject of philosophical
enquiry at the domestic level.1 Although, as we will see, some are dubious, international
criminal law, since its aims are cognate2 to those that criminal law seeks to achieve at the
domestic level, ought to be subject to similar scrutiny. The analogous nature of inter-
national and domestic criminal law is underpinned now by the fact that the principle of
complementarity, which underpins the relationship between the International Criminal
Court and national jurisdictions, emphasises the role of domestic prosecutions in the
international regime that responds to such crimes.3
Similarly to domestic criminal law, there are various different ways in which philoso-
phy and international criminal law intersect. Some scholars working in the area work on
the philosophical foundations of punishment at the international level.4 Others work on
applying doctrinal criminal law theory to international criminal law;5 still others have
attempted to provide philosophical foundations for particular international crimes.6


1
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