Book Reviews

Ahlbrecht, Heiko. Geschichte der völkerrechtlichen Strafgerichtsbarkeit im 20. Jahrhundert. Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1999; Pp. XXVI, 396, appendix 148,- DM, 1080,- öS, 131,50 sFr

The adoption of the Rome Statute for the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) of July 1998 reflects a dramatic development in the international community's approach to the punishment of grave international crimes. With this Statute, the international community reached a consensus for the first time on accepting responsibility for the prosecution and punishment of persons guilty of such crimes. In order to understand the outcome of the Rome conference, it is essential to recall the faltering development of international (criminal) law in the 20th century against a background of political circumstances and historic events, essentially the two World Wars and innumerable armed conflicts, that triggered and furthered the demand for an effective instrument to counter the impunity of those responsible for crimes against international law.

While this important recent development has given rise to an abundant literature on various aspects of international criminal law, an analysis of the historical circumstances has been neglected. Heiko Ahlbrecht has filled this gap by providing a chronological account of the development of international criminal law leading up to the establishment of the ICC. The author does much more than examine the major precedents of international criminal jurisdiction, such as the Treaty of Versailles and the Leipzig war crime tribunals, the Nuremberg and Tokyo International Military Tribunals following the Second World War and the International Criminal Tribunals for Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Indeed, he draws an overall picture of the development of international criminal law in the 20th century against its historical background. Ahlbrecht looks at initiatives to punish war crimes that have been much less commonly appraised in the academic literature, including efforts in the wake of the war in Vietnam and the Iraq-Kuwait war, as well as several academic contributions to the topic, most importantly the drafts of the International Law Commission. The study concludes with an account of the present outcome of the arduous journey towards an international criminal jurisdiction, namely the ICC Statute.

The author's red line throughout this study is his focus on material law rather than the institutional framework and questions of procedure. Ahlbrecht analyses the attempts made to codify the three crimes that today fall under the jurisdiction of the ICC: genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. He examines the recognition of these crimes in international law, closely linking this analysis to the question of validity of the nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege principle in its four derivations, nulla poena sine lege scripta, sine lege strica, praevia and certa. This survey shows how political decision-making rather than the principle of legality has determined the history of criminal jurisdiction.

The author seeks to give a comprehensive account of the historical background and precedents and as well as the range of academic discussion. Given this broad approach, the venture at times becomes a mere tour d'horizon. Chapter 5 on the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals, for example, lacks an assessment of the actual cases and verdicts. The subsequent proceedings under the Kontrollratsgesetz 10 are simply listed. Moreover, one might have hoped to find a clearer assessment of the cases before the ICTY in Chapter 9. On the other hand, Ahlbrecht's account of the period of the Cold War in Chapter 7 is very informative, with the Vietnam war providing a clear example of the failure to bring war criminals to justice due to a lack of joint political will. This part of the book is interesting as it deals with one of the rather less commonly examined chapters of international criminal jurisdiction. It also shows Ahlbrecht's strength: his study might appear rather descriptive, but it is as such a valuable, well-documented compendium, which, at least in the German language, is the first of its kind.

Regina von Ledebur
Völkerrecht Institut für LMU München

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