Kurzbeschreibung

Reihe: The Annotated Digest of the International Criminal Court. Band: 3

The Annotated Digest of the International Criminal Court (2008) is the third volume of an annual series. It compiles a selection of the most significant legal findings contained in the public decisions rendered by the International Criminal Court in 2008.
2008 is a cornerstone in the development of activities of the Court. A total of 472 public decisions have been reviewed for the preparation of the present volume. This is more than the cumulated number of decisions reviewed in the two previous volumes covering period 2004-2007. Among these, Chambers rendered an extraordinary number of landmark decisions, on important topics such as the constitutive elements of crimes against humanity and war crimes, the rights of victims to participate at different stages of the proceedings, the rights of the Defense - in particular the guarantees of fair trial and the obligation bearing on the Prosecution to disclose potentially exculpatory evidence in its possession - , etc. The year is also marked by two new arrests, one in the situation in the Democratic Republic of Congo (Ngudjolo), the other in the situation in Central African Republic (Bemba) and the confirmation of charges in the joint case The Prosecutor v. Katanga and Ngudjolo. 2008 finally paves the way to the commencement of the first trials in the history of the International Criminal Court, which started in 2009 and are still ongoing simultaneously.

Abstracts compiled in this Series have been selected on the basis to the following criteria:
1) abstracts which clarify a point of law, interpret a rule…;
2) abstracts which show how a specific rule is applied by a Chamber;
3) abstracts which are otherwise meaningful with respect to international justice, human rights, international humanitarian law.

Abstracts are quoted in their official English version. Abstracts are inserted under the relevant articles of the Statute, Rules of Procedure and Evidence and Regulations of the Court, with a short description/summary of their precise topic. Where the English version was not available, abstracts are quoted in their original French version, but the short description/summary in English allows non-French speaking readers to identify their contents. A quick reference system and index make it easy to refer to other decisions quoted in the Digests Series.