In 2021, the Ntaganda case introduced a new approach to evaluating the monetary liability for reparations in the International Criminal Court (ICC) by explicitly recognizing joint and several liability and centring the determination of the quantum of reparations on the harm suffered by the victims and the costs to repair it. As suggested by the Ntaganda Trial Chamber, these two innovations promote a stronger separation between the reparation process and the criminal trial, in order to consolidate a compensatory and victim-centred approach to reparations awarded by the ICC. This article critically appraises the innovations in Ntaganda through the lens of Article 21 of the Rome Statute, focussing on three elements: (i) the evolving jurisprudence on monetary liability in the ICC prior to the Ntaganda case; (ii) the case law on reparations of hybrid criminal courts; and (iii) the notion of general principles of law derived from the national legal systems of the world, in the sense of Article 21(1)(c) of the Statute. The article argues that, despite its victim friendly veneer, the approach introduced in Ntaganda should not be taken for granted. Besides the fact that multiple important aspects and ramifications of this approach remain unaddressed, those two innovations may have serious implications for the victims, the convicted persons, and the ICC’s reparations process as a whole.

Franz Perrez is Director-General of the Directorate of International Law at the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), Switzerland. He is responsible for the development and interpretation of international law and ensuring that Switzerland's strategic rights are respected abroad. As a member of the FDFA senior management, Mr Perrez is also jointly responsible for the FDFA's strategic approach and advises the Federal Council, Switzerland's representatives abroad and other Federal Administration offices on international law issues.

Prior to his new role Mr Perrez was appointed Switzerland's Ambassador for the Environment and Head of the International Affairs Division at the Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) in 2010. In this capacity, he headed the Swiss delegations to international environmental and climate negotiations for thirteen years.

After studying law in Bern and Paris, Mr Perrez worked at the FDFA's Directorate of International Law from 1993 to 1995. He went on to study at New York University, where he gained a master of laws focusing on international law and completed a PhD thesis on the topic of sovereignty as a principle of cooperation. On returning to Switzerland, he took up a position at the World Trade Organization (WTO) Division of the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, before joining the FOEN in 2001.

Mr Perrez has proven expertise in international law. He has widely published in the area of international environmental law, international environmental governance, the relationship between trade and the environment, and public international law. Since 2008, Mr Perrez has also lectured on international environmental law at the University of Bern School of Law. He served as a panellist on the newest WTO tuna–dolphin dispute between Mexico and the United States, and as Switzerland's Ambassador for the Environment and Chief Negotiator for Environmental Issues, namely climate change, biodiversity, chemicals and waste, he led the Swiss delegation to the Rio+20 conference and to the Paris Climate Change Conference in 2015. He was President of the Basel Convention (COP 11 in 2013) and President of the Rotterdam Convention (COP 8 in 2017) and facilitated the negotiations on mitigation of the Paris Agreement. Through his work within and outside of Switzerland, he has built strong networks around the world and within the Federal Administration.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has come under challenge in recent years as some countries have decided, or considered, to withdraw from it. Against this backdrop, an emerging literature has begun to examine attitudes toward the court among the general public as a key court constituency. However, little is known about how domestic elites perceive the court. This research gap is particularly surprising given that domestic elites have a considerable impact on both public and state support of the court. This article explains why political and societal elites across world regions have confidence or lack confidence in the ICC. We present the results from a unique survey of 722 elite respondents conducted from 2017 to 2019 across six countries: Brazil, Germany, the Philippines, Russia, South Africa, and the United States. We furthermore enrich our analysis by using public opinion data to draw comparisons between elites and the general public. The analyses reveal that the views of elites are most consistently related to their perceptions of other, more well-known international organizations and their country’s relationship with the ICC. Our findings indicate both similarities and differences between how elite and public opinion about the ICC are formed, demonstrating the value of further research on elite opinion on international courts.

La Cour pénale internationale s’est penchée récemment sur la question nouvelle de la réparation des préjudices transgénérationnels. Dans son analyse, la cour s’appuie sur un type de préjudice qui dépasse la victime immédiate et qui en vise une qui n’a vécu l’événement traumatique original, que par l’entremise d’un transfert générationnel. En ce qui concerne la réparation, il faut établir si ce préjudice est spécifique et autonome justifiant une reconnaissance et, par conséquent, une mesure de réparation. La question de réparer un préjudice transgénérationnel est d’actualité et encore peu étudiée en droit pénal international. Le présent article vise à apporter une contribution dans ce domaine en examinant la façon dont le préjudice transgénérationnel est juridiquement élaboré dans certains exemples s’inscrivant dans un contexte de violations massives et graves des droits humains. Enfin, l’article analyse la jurisprudence de la Cour pénale internationale, mettant en lumière les difficultés et les dilemmes générés par la reconnaissance des préjudices transgénérationnels dans la sphère juridique pénale.

The article focuses on reparations, as ordered by the International Criminal Court (ICC) against a convicted individual. It has long been orthodoxy that such measures fulfil solely compensatory objectives, for they lack any punitive intent. This article offers a rival account. An analysis of the respective regulatory and contextual framework reveals that, by design, reparations are allowed to pursue compensatory and punitive goals equally. An analysis of the reparations orders themselves affirms that, in practice, the ICC utilizes reparations as a means to accomplish compensatory and punitive objectives both. It is maintained that reparations orders are both remedial and punitive in nature. Ignoring this reality has a negative impact on individual prerogatives, and contradicts fundamental sentencing ideals of international criminal justice. It follows that the current reparations order regime should be reformed. The ICC should either explicitly acknowledge reparations as punishment, or detach them from criminal proceedings altogether.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is a legal institution embedded in international politics. Politics shaped the Rome Statute of the ICC, which is rooted in norms and rules of European lineage and security interests of party states. Politics constrains and influences the operation of the Court, which has adapted in response to oversight and governance of the Assembly of States Parties, and to political actions extrinsic to institutional rules. The ICC also has political effects in situation states. A brief history shows that application of Rome Statute triggers across state parties with different social conditions skewed geographic distribution of its investigations and prosecutions towards Africa, a structural bias that catalysed a legitimation crisis for the ICC. Subsequent exercises of expansive jurisdiction aimed at nationals of non-African, non-party states – including Israel and some of the world's great powers – have dampened African complaints and advanced the ICC agenda, but intensified non-legitimacy claims by powerful non-party states. To survive, Court organs must follow legal mandates, yet be responsive to pressing international political demands, continuously risking the legitimacy of the ICC as a legal institution and adverse political reactions by antagonised governments. Careful management of the tension between law and politics at the ICC may modestly reduce antagonism towards the Court, but that tension cannot be resolved, and confrontations over the ICC's legitimacy are certain to recur.

Much discussion over Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine focuses on the inability to charge aggression. However, another approach might be available: charging this under the ICC crimes against humanity (CAH) residual clause. First proposed in 2010 by Benjamin Ferencz, who lamented the circumscribed reach of aggression under the ‘Kampala Compromise’, the proposal has met with scepticism, primarily given that textbook aggression targets military forces, not civilians. Yet, civilian populations disproportionately bear the brunt of the violence of modern aggression (often being its direct targets). Russia's 2022 invasion is but the most recent and compelling example. Thus, this article resuscitates Ferencz's proposal, arguing that Russian leaders could be charged with using illegal force as a CAH under the residual clause. This approach would have practical advantages: initiating aggression in the Kremlin links liability to Putin much more directly for killing Ukrainian civilians, and charging it as CAH opens human victims to ICC participation and reparations. There are theoretical advantages, too, with utilitarian/retributive objectives better satisfied. Moreover, Ferencz's approach is better than recently proposed alternatives: using aggression merely as a gravity/liability modes/sentencing enhancer or alleging breach of the right to self-determination as the residual clause gravamen (arguably creating problems with victim group identification).

Despite Article 68(3) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) granting victims an autonomous standing in proceedings, victims’ participatory rights have often been tailored to fit within the retributive structure of the trials. This contribution aims to provide a different perspective on victims’ role and their narratives in proceedings at the ICC, building upon the expressivist model of international criminal justice and focusing on a specific strand that engages with the adjudication process’s performative and communicative features. In providing a better understanding of how victims’ narrative unfolds in trials at the ICC, the article addresses two issues: how the concept of the victim is constructed at the ICC; and whether and, eventually, how this construct impedes progress in recognizing their narratives in proceedings at the ICC. Concerning the first issue, drawing on criminologist Nils Christie’s theorizing of the ‘ideal victim’, it will be observed that the construct of victims in proceedings at the ICC reflects three main attributes: weakness; innocence; and dependency. The second issue shed light on the extent to which the emphasis on the ‘ideal victim’ can serve as a tool in the hands of institutional actors at the ICC to pre-empt, constrain and subordinate victims’ narratives, in a manner that oversimplifies victimhood. To impose a particular narrative upon victims’ experiences, three main procedural mechanisms have been identified: appropriation of victims’ interests; legal representation of abstract victimhood; and exclusion from the trial of victims who do not conform to the ideal victim.