Chapter 8 explores the legal and political dilemmas arising from the assessment of individual criminal responsibility in two ICC cases, which ended in acquittals: Bemba and Gbagbo and Blé Goudé. The analysis focuses on the battles of ideas inside the legal field, situating those dynamics within the broader international political context of the Bemba and Gbagbo and Blé Goudé trials. This chapter offers an illustration of the distinctive and predominant line of legal reasoning at the ICC, a line of legal reasoning that prioritizes the quality of the process through the narrow application of the modes of liability and the meticulous assessment of evidence, all regardless of the trial outcome. The chapter concludes that the Bemba Appeals Chamber Majority and Gbagbo and Blé Goudé Trial Chamber Majority have adopted an internal shared understanding about the role of the court in the international society, according to which procedural excellence upholds the integrity of the liberal system of criminal justice and provides an antidote to the false information dominating the modern political world. Nevertheless, the restrained approach to the assessment of criminal responsibility has been contested by dissenting judges, non-governmental organizations, and legal experts.

Chapter 9 explores the legal and political dilemmas arising from the assessment of individual criminal responsibility in two ICC cases, which ended in convictions: Ntaganda and Ongwen. This chapter observes that in those two cases the ICC judges have followed the same line of legal reasoning, premised on a restrained application of the modes of liability, as in the Bemba and Gbagbo and Blé Goudé cases discussed in Chapter 8. However, unlike the Bemba and Gbagbo and Blé Goudé cases, which ended in acquittal, the persons standing trial in Ntaganda and Ongwen had been actively involved in the hostilities, which have resulted in the commission of numerous crimes. The accused’s proximity to the crimes and their willingness to engage in criminal conducts convinced the judges in their criminal responsibility for the crimes, which they had committed personally, as well as the crimes, which they had committed ‘indirectly’, through their troops. Apart from two appeals judges, who expressed some concern with the reliance on the ‘control over the crime’ theory in Ntaganda, the meticulous assessment of the facts in the judgments left little room for contestation of the trial outcomes within the ICL field.