Campbell, Kirsten. 2012. Victims and Perpetrators of International Crimes: The Problem of the 'Legal Person'. Journal of International Humanitarian Legal Studies, 2(2), pp. 325-351. ISSN 1878-1373 [Article]

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Abstract or Description

Protecting victims and punishing perpetrators are now seen as integral elements of the implementation and enforcement of humanitarian norms. However, how international law constructs the victims and perpetrators of international crimes as entities with rights and duties remains insufficiently examined. This paper explores the different models of victims and perpetrators as legal persons in international criminal law. It argues that the legal person takes two forms: the victim of human rights and the perpetrator of criminal responsibility. While the legal regime presents these as autonomous and singular individuals, it also constitutes them as members of groups that criminal norms seek to protect or punish. Contemporary international criminal law resolves this tension between individual and collective rights and responsibilities by reconstituting legal subjectivity through an intersubjective conception of the universal community of humans. Ultimately, this `legal person' relies on the idea of `humanity', the collectivity of all humans, to hide this problematic conceptual basis of the rights and duties of victims and perpetrators in ICL.

Item Type:	Article
Identification Number (DOI):	https://doi.org/10.1163/18781527-00202003
Departments, Centres and Research Units:	Sociology > Unit for Global Justice (UGJ) > Gender of Justice
Dates:	Date Event 2012 Published
Item ID:	7666
Date Deposited:	20 Feb 2013 09:19
Last Modified:	09 Jul 2021 13:52
Peer Reviewed:	Yes, this version has been peer-reviewed.
URI:	https://research.gold.ac.uk/id/eprint/7666

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