Escalation and Expansion: Fundamental Challenges to International Criminal Law
Escalation and Expansion: Fundamental Challenges to International Criminal Law

Author(s): Gerhard Fiolka
Subject(s): Law, Constitution, Jurisprudence, Criminal Law, International Law
Published by: Пловдивски университет »Паисий Хилендарски«
Keywords: International Criminal Law; Genocide; Ecocide; Crimes against Humanity; Judicial Activism
Summary/Abstract: Today, in addition to the issue of effectiveness, International Criminal Law (ICL) faces fundamental challenges that might determine or undermine its functionality and legitimacy in the years to come. In recent years, International Criminal Law has been a topic of escalating rhetoric. In political and also in armed conflict the term of Genocide has become an instrument to discredit opponents or to emphasize the importance of situations. However, the excessive and emotive use of the term brings about a serious risk of blurring the concept of Genocide and of understating the importance of other categories of crimes such as war crimes and crimes against humanity. Furthermore, there are policy initiatives to expand the scope of the International Criminal Law. The most prominent example nowadays is the effort to expand the scope of application of the Rome Statute to a new crime of «Ecocide». However, the inclusion of new crimes with unclear definitions might entail serious risks for the acceptance and legitimacy of International Criminal Law in the international sphere as a whole, insofar as it can be seen as an instrument of judicial activism or moral entrepreneurship.

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