PSI 3321 - International Criminal Law

Credits: 4
The aim of the course is to introduce one of the youngest and fastest-developing branches of public international law. The course will familiarize the students with the basic concepts of individual criminal responsibility in a practice-oriented way with emphasis on recent international case-law since international criminal law is mainly developed by the jurisprudence of international criminal fora. By the end of the term the students are expected to become acquainted with the notion and specific elements of international crimes, in particular, war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and aggression, seen particularly through the prism of the jurisprudence of international and internationalized courts and tribunals. The course will also touch upon fundamental questions of international criminal procedural law. The classes will be based on the interactive participation of the students and will involve that analysis of current cases and judicial decisions. Apart from addressing basic questions of criminal accountability, the course will try to probe some of the ‘hard questions’, such as the universality or relativity of the notion of international crimes, the banality of evil, the peace versus justice conundrum and dilemma of whether individual criminal responsibility can adequately reflect mass criminality.
This course is offered at the Budapest campus.