Judges, Lawyers, and the Practices of Interpretation in International Criminal Law

Conducted by Dr Nora Stappert, the project ran between September 2018 and August 2020. It was funded by the European Commission as part of the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (Marie Skłodowska-Curie action, Individual Fellowship).

THE PROJECT IS CLOSED
Project period: 2018-2020

International criminal courts and tribunals had developed international criminal law significantly, both with regard to its substantive and its procedural rules. Examples of such developments range from the interpretation of the law of war crimes to the law of command responsibility, a form of liability in international criminal law. What was the broader relevance of these interpretive developments in global governance more generally? And, more specifically, how and with which effects had the judgements of international criminal courts and tribunals contributed to the development of legal meaning in international criminal law?

To answer these questions, the project proceeded in two steps. First, it investigated how exactly this interpretive development had occurred across different international criminal courts and tribunals, and most recently the International Criminal Court (ICC). To do so, the project drew on International Relations theory and legal theory to examine how judges responded to the potential for innovation in the interpretation of international criminal law.

Second, the project enquired into the broader relevance of this interpretive development. To do so, it asked how the judgements of international criminal courts and tribunals had been received, disseminated, and potentially re-interpreted outside of the specialized context of international courtrooms. Specifically, the project explored empirically how a broader interpretive community including state officials and staff at non-governmental organisations engaged with these judgements. Methodologically, the project drew on a combination of qualitative and quantitative forms of content analysis, network analysis, qualitative interviews, and legal interpretive methods.