Book Review: Individual Criminal Responsibility in International Law, editor by Elies van Sliedregt

The rapid growth of international law, particularly through the early work of
the ICTY and ICTR, necessitated an elaboration of principles of criminal liabil-
ity that was based on ad hoc synthesis, syncretism and ingenuity. Of course,
patchwork law, especially in the field of criminal justice, engenders numerous
pitfalls, not least the risk of retroactivity, poor analogies and ultimately failure
to deliver true justice. Such questions on the quality of justice delivered by the
ad hoc tribunals, as well as by more recent ones, have surfaced and have given
rise to serious debates about concepts which most international lawyers take
for granted. To make the point, joint criminal enterprise (JCE) still seems ran-
dom to many scholars – not to mention defence lawyers – as does the applica-
tion of command responsibility to civilian “leaders”.