Siracusa International Institute e-learning

The Siracusa International Institute for Criminal Justice and Human Rights will organize the 23rd Specialization Course in International Criminal Law for Young Penalists ‘M. Cherif Bassiouni’ on ‘International Criminal Law and Current Global Crises’ between Monday, May 27, and Saturday, June 1, 2024. The course will take place in presence at the headquarters of the Siracusa Institute, located in Siracusa, Italy; online participation will also be allowed. The final (oral) examination for the Diploma will take place exclusively online on Tuesday, June 4 and Wednesday, June 5. The course will consist of 12 daily sessions spread over six days, for a total of 32 contact hours. The daily sessions will consist of keynote lectures, panel discussions and small-group exercises, which aim to stimulate interaction among participants. The daily sessions will be programmed approximately between h. 9.30 and 17.30, CET. Each session will be broadcast live on a dedicated digital platform. In addition, during the course and for one week after the broadcast, participants will have access to video recordings of all daily sessions.

Once the course is completed, participants will have to take an online examination to receive the Diploma of the Siracusa International Institute. The examination will have a written and an oral component. Successful participants will be among the Institute’s graduates and eligible for a prize to be awarded to the person who achieves the best examination result, and two runners-up.

Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States observed in 2022 that her country had made the “civilisational choice,” to put its faith in international law and international institutions. But are international law and institutions up to the task? With the outbreak of a brutal war in Gaza, and the continuation of war in Ukraine and in the Sudan, just to name a few current conflicts, there is a worry that the international legal order is fraying beyond repair. International institutions were engaged in various aspects of the Ukraine conflict to an unprecedented degree. Is that model working? Can it be replicated in other cases? South Africa’s case against Israel in the International Court of Justice, and the referral of the Gaza situation to the ICC suggests that States are still hopeful that institutions matter. This short course will explore some of the many ways in which international law and institutions have been asked to address elements of global conflict including State responsibility, accountability for human rights abuses, individual criminal accountability, and economic concerns.

This course is dedicated to understanding modes of individual criminal responsibility in the context of international criminal litigation. This is a rich, complex, and often controversial area of international criminal law that is an absolutely critical component in securing accountability for international crimes. Establishing the nature of an accused participation in a criminal act beyond all reasonable doubt is the core task and responsibility of the prosecution. However, this task is replete with challenges unique to international crimes such as for example their often vast geographic and temporal scope, the remoteness of the accused from the scene of the crime(s), and the fact that international crimes are rarely if ever committed by a single person acting alone.

This course will bring together some of the leading scholars and practitioners on the subject of modes of individual criminal responsibility and will provide a firm understanding of the current state of the law while also reflecting on how challenges and controversies can be addressed and overcome. To this end, the course will open with a Keynote Lecture from Judge Christine van den Wyngaert former judge at the ICC, the ICTY, and Judge ad hoc at the ICJ, and currently judge at the Kosovo Specialist Chambers. Following this opening, the course will proceed to examine over six sessions topics such as forms of direct participation in international crimes, in-direct participation including aiding and abetting, the responsibility of superiors (military and civilian), inchoate forms of responsibility such as incitement, and finally the course will end with a session looking at the evidentiary challenges associated with proving modes of individual criminal responsibility.

The course will consider how the digital environment and human rights intersect and discuss the advancement of human rights in the digital age. It examines the challenges to the promotion and realisation of rights as it applies to the emergence of digital technologies, therefore, it discusses issues pertaining to human rights and their protection in the use of digital technologies. Transparency and accountability are central to the promotion of rights in the digital era; hence, the course also examines duties, responsibilities and accountability in relation to the realisation of digital rights. Participants in the course will gain advanced specialist knowledge of contemporary human rights challenges, liabilities and accountability regimes across a range of digital environments. Participants will also gain critical awareness of the contemporary debates relating to human rights duties and responsibilities that arise in relation to digital technologies.

The course will examine how international courts prove the most serious international crimes. It aims to provide a thorough analysis of law and procedure relating to evidence and proof in international criminal trials, from Nuremberg through to the ad hoc international criminal tribunals, to international and hybrid tribunals today. The course will explore key concepts such as the burden and standard of proof; witness protection; the evaluation of evidence, and the standard of review on appeal. It will examine new developments in the law and practice of the International Criminal Court, such as the turn towards a ‘submission model’ for the admission of evidence and recent jurisprudence on witness proofing.

The Siracusa International Institute for Criminal Justice and Human Rights will organize the 22nd Specialization Course in International Criminal Law for Young Penalists on ‘75 Years: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and The Genocide Convention’ between Monday, June 12, and Saturday, June 17, 2023. The course will take place in presence at the headquarters of the Siracusa Institute, located in Siracusa, Italy; online participation will also be allowed. The final examination for the Diploma will take place exclusively online on Wednesday, June 21 and Thursday, June 22. The course will consist of 12 daily sessions spread over six days, for a total of 32 contact hours. The daily sessions will consist of keynote lectures, panel discussions and small-group exercises, which aim to stimulate interaction among participants. The daily sessions will be programmed approximately between h. 9.30 and 17.30, CET. Each session will be broadcast live on a dedicated digital platform. In addition, during the course and for one week after the broadcast, participants will have access to video recordings of all daily sessions. 

Once the course is completed, participants will have to take an online examination to receive the Diploma of the Siracusa International Institute. The examination will have a written and an oral component. Successful participants will be among the Institute’s graduates and eligible for a prize to be awarded to the person who achieves the best examination result, and two runners-up. 

Enduring critiques posit that international law is “white, Western and male”. The international criminal justice system has since its origins been questioned for its inability or unwillingness to consider the values and worldviews of non-Western cultures and societies into its legal and institutional frameworks. It has been mired in controversies and critiques on account of a perception that it operates on double standards, as victor’s justice or by perpetuating its colonial legacy. In recent times, some states, in particular from the African continent, have criticized the International Criminal Court (ICC) on the grounds of selectivity, a critique that continues as the investigations into Afghanistan or Palestine face opposition by powerful states. Similarly, the unprecedented support for the ICC investigation in Ukraine has raised questions about the inequalities and structural racism of international justice, as violations of international law of a similar scale that happen elsewhere do not attract the same response. This short course will discuss the inconsistencies and deficits of the discipline and practice of international criminal law, while also exploring its counter-hegemonic potential and identifying promising developments.