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Published in:
The Problem of Liability in International Criminal Law Read chapter Read first chapter

2017 | OriginalPaper | Chapter

2. Leadership Liability for Collective Crimes

Author : Cassandra Steer

Published in: Translating Guilt

Publisher: T.M.C. Asser Press

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Abstract

This chapter deals with the challenge of translating guilt for collective crimes from the group to the individual, and asks how a leader should be held responsible in both a moral and legal sense. In conflict situations the moral universe has shifted, and ordinary people who would not normally commit acts of violence become capable of heinous acts on a grand scale. Such crimes are characterised by the use of State (or State-like) apparatuses by government or military officials and superiors, but the distance between these superiors and the crimes committed by the hands of others makes it difficult to untangle questions of responsibility. The greatest challenge is how to accurately reflect the collective nature of these crimes, and at the same time identify who is truly to blame for them. The notion of overlapping agency is posited as a useful tool, and it is argued that the deliberative structures within a collective can help to identify who has more agency and therefore more responsibility. In such a way, translation from the collective to the individual can be justified, and leadership liability can be identified.

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previous chapter The Problem of Liability in International Criminal Law
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Footnotes
1
Arendt 1987, p. 43.
 
2
Nino 1996, p. 136; Mégret 2013, p. 93.
 
3
Duff 2007, p. 58.
 
4
See for example Drumbl 2005, p. 541; Tallgren 2002, p. 573; Robinson 2012, p. 134.
 
5
H. Jäger, Makrokriminalität: Studien zur Kriminologie kollektiver Gewalt, (Surhkamp 1989) at 12, cited in Harrendorf 2014, p. 233.
 
6
Sancinetti and Ferrante 1999, p. 23; Nino 1996, p. 58; Hinton 1998, pp. 95, 113; Tallgren 2002, p. 573.
 
7
Arendt 1973, p. 397.
 
8
Arendt 1973, p. 311; Semelin 2007, pp. 166–168.
 
9
These are the attributes of ideologies as defined by A. Alvarez, ‘Destructive Beliefs: Genocide and the Role of Ideology’ in: Haverman and Smeulers 2008, 216; see also Harrendorf 2014, p. 235.
 
10
H.C. Kelman and V.L. Hamilton, Crimes of Obedience: Towards a Social Psychology of Authority and Responsibility, (Yale University Press 1989) at 16–20, cited in: Harrendorf 2014, p. 240.
 
11
Harrendorf 2014, p. 243.
 
12
Alette Smeulers, ‘Perpetrators of International Crimes: Towards a Typology’, in: Haverman and Smeulers 2008; see also Harrendorf 2014, p. 244.
 
13
Alette Smeulers, ‘Perpetrators of International Crimes: Towards a Typology’, in: Haverman and Smeulers 2008, p. 242.
 
14
Mégret 2013, p. 86. An important exception is the notion of qasāma in many schools of Islamic law, whereby if a victim is found dead and there is no identifiable suspect, either the owner of the property or land on which the victim was found, or all the inhabitants of the quarter in which the victim is found can be liable to pay ‘blood money’ as a compensation to the victim’s family members. This is predicated on the notion that the landowner or the community would be more likely to ensure security in their quarter of living if they know there is a risk they will be held liable in the event of a violent crime. See Peters 2005.
 
15
Fletcher 2002.
 
16
Fletcher 2002, p. 1501.
 
17
Fletcher 2002, p. 1508.
 
18
Press Statement by Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte on the Occasion of her Visit to Belgrade, The Hague, 30 January 2001, P.I.S./558-E.
 
19
Fletcher 2002, p. 1504.
 
20
See Arendt 1973, p. 314; Drumbl 2005, p. 541; Tallgren 2002.
 
21
Fletcher 2002, p. 1543.
 
22
For an insightful and succinct discussion of the scholarship on this phenomenon, see Harrendorf 2014, p. 243.
 
23
Arendt 1964, p. 253.
 
24
Drumbl 2005, p. 568.
 
25
Fletcher 2002, p. 1543.
 
26
Osiel 2009, p. 20, citing Enrique Gimbernat Ordeig, Autor y Complíce en Derecho Penal (1966) at p. 187.
 
27
Report of the President of the ICTY 1994, para 16.
 
28
Mégret 2013, p. 109.
 
29
Simpson 2007, p. 71.
 
30
Haan 2005, p. 173.
 
31
More attention will be paid to this in Sect. 5.​3.​6.​3 where the definitions of terminology are clarified.
 
32
Fletcher 2002, p. 1512; Drumbl 2005, p. 567.
 
33
Kutz 2000, pp. 68, 75.
 
34
Kutz 2000, p. 69.
 
35
Kutz 2000, p. 96.
 
36
Kutz 2000, p. 146.
 
37
Kutz 2000, pp. 147–154.
 
38
Kutz 2000, p. 155.
 
39
Ohlin 2007.
 
40
Ohlin 2007, p. 173.
 
41
Ohlin 2007, p. 181.
 
42
Ohlin 2007, p. 185.
 
43
Ohlin 2007, pp. 196–7.
 
44
Ohlin 2007, p. 197.
 
45
Ohlin 2007.
 
46
Duff 2007, p. 58.
 
47
Duff 2007, p. 37.
 
48
Duff 2007, p. 47.
 
49
Arendt 1973, p. 307.
 
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Metadata
Title
Leadership Liability for Collective Crimes
Author
Cassandra Steer
Copyright Year
2017
Publisher
T.M.C. Asser Press
Book
Translating Guilt

Print ISBN: 978-94-6265-170-8

Electronic ISBN: 978-94-6265-171-5

Copyright Year: 2017

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6265-171-5_2