I am delighted to announce the publication of a terrific-looking new book: A Theory of Punishable Participation in Universal Crimes, by Professor Terje Einarsen of the University of Bergen, and my knowledgable and able co-author, Dr. Joseph Rikhof, recently retired from the War Crimes Program at Justice Canada. Here is the publisher's blurb:
"This study is the second in a four-part series entitled "Rethinking the Essentials of International Criminal Law and Transitional Justice." The first volume - The Concept of Universal Crimes in International Law - explored the parameters and theories related to crimes under international law. This volume examines the notion of punishable participation in such crimes. It presents a general theory of personal criminal liability and provides a comprehensive overview of all forms of criminal participation in international law. The authors examine numerous primary materials in international and transnational criminal law, both historical and current, relating to both international and domestic case law. They also analyse academic literature that attempts to explain and bring consistency to the jurisprudence, as well as other sources such as reports of the International Law Commission. This rich tapestry is then used to test and further develop an overarching conceptual theory and matrix that provides a better understanding of the boundaries of personal criminal liability lex lata and lex ferenda, and of the relationship between the various forms of punishable participation in universal crimes. Like the first volume, this book makes an important contribution to a more coherent and practical understanding of international criminal law. The authors are recognised experts in the field, with many years of experience from academic, government and judicial service."
I am certainly looking forward to reading this book, having already enjoyed the first book in the series, Prof. Einarsen's master work, The Concept of Universal Crimes in International Law (which, in fact, I reviewed for the Journal of International Criminal Justice). Dr. Rikhof, whose sophistication as both practitioner and scholar of international criminal law is largely un-matched, has doubtless brought his usual meticulousness and penchant for deep analysis to this work.
I'm particularly pleased to see the attention the authors bring to domestic case law and how it figures into the matrix of theories about individual liability for what the authors prefer to call "universal crimes." This is an important source that often goes un-scrutinized -- or when it is included, writers sometimes don't know what to do with it from a methodological point of view. I've also had a sneak peek at Chapter 5, which has a discussion about liability in transnational criminal law, and found it very stimulating.
You can order the book on Amazon, here. However, like all of the books in the wonderful Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher Publication Series, it is available for free at this link.