Lunch seminar with Raphael Oidtmann
Fighting Impunity Through Intermediaries – The European Union, International Criminal Justice, and the Rule of Law in Times of War
Abstract
Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU) enshrines the rule of law as a foundational principle governing the European Union (EU) and distinguishes it as a value shared amongst its Member States. The long-lived conviction that the rule of law would constitute a given certainty firmly established across the European continent, however, has been contested in recent years. This notwithstanding, the EU has continued to support and strengthen (multilateral) judicial institutions abroad under a distinct rule of law paradigm. The EU has hence particularly increased its efforts to bolster the rule of law through the domains of international criminal justice and human rights protection, thereby fighting impunity for international crimes through distinct international (adjudicative) fora, such as the International Criminal Court. The EU’s very own definition of impunity as well as the notion of how this perception might influence respective EU policies and legislation, however, has remained rather vague - including with a view towards the eventual prosecution of and adjudication on international crimes. The project aims at comprehensively retracing, analysing, and contextualising the direct and indirect patterns by and through which the EU has attempted to empower intermediaries in international criminal justice, thereby supporting their fight against impunity.
Speaker bio
Raphael currently serves as a parliamentary and legal advisor to the State Parliament of Hesse and holds further appointments as adjunct lecturer at Mannheim Law School, as associate researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, as associate postgraduate (‘doctorant associé’) at Centre Marc Bloch, and as global fellow at the Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs at Brown University.
Previously, he was the scientific advisor to the executive director at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) and held positions as a research fellow and lecturer at the universities of Mannheim and Mainz. Holding master’s degrees in political science, international and comparative law, and international relations, he currently is an external PhD candidate at the Institute of Political Science at Goethe University Frankfurt.
He was a visiting researcher at iCourts in August 2020.
Meeting ID: 621 3969 4669
Passcode: 908645