Complementarity: Contest or Collaboration? - FICHL

Complementarity and the Exercise of Universal Jurisdiction for
Core International Crimes
tigations and prosecutions – will universal jurisdiction preserve its legitimacy
over time.
We may benefit from further research and discussion on these dilemmas
and relevant underlying conflicts of reasonable interests. Some
wider perspectives should also be taken into consideration. For example,
when the ad hoc internationalised criminal jurisdictions have completed
their operations in a few years and the ICC represents international criminal
justice for atrocities, the complementary nature of the ICC will lead to
a shift of emphasis to how national ability to investigate and prosecute
core international crimes can be strengthened. Such development of national
capacity does not happen over night, especially not in territorial
states directly affected by conflict and socially disruptive crimes. What, if
any, should be the impact of this scenario on the use of subsidiarity in
forum states?
Furthermore, for the younger generations of legal scholars there are
other future-oriented issues waiting to be explored, such as the effect of
the predictable broadening of the catalogue of core international crimes
on the tension between subsidiarity and universal jurisdiction. As it stands
in August 2010, the established crime of aggression may be the first addition
to the list of such crimes in the context of the ICC. But later additions
could include crimes of international terrorism and even serious international
environmental crimes where the application of the notion of hostes
humani generis (that the perpetrators are considered the enemies of all
mankind) may not always be entirely clear.
FICHL Publication Series No. 7 (2010) – page 6