Judicial responses to pre-trial procedural violations in international criminal proceedings

This book provides an in-depth examination of the judicial response at the international criminal tribunals – the UN ad hoc Tribunals and the International Criminal Court – to the violation of procedural standards in the pre-trial phase of the proceedings. It does so against the backdrop of the assumption that certain particularities of international criminal proceedings may warrant a different approach to the matter than at the national level.
By reference to relevant human rights standards and to the national criminal procedure of two jurisdictions – the Netherlands, and England and Wales – as well as to theoretical accounts of the judicial response to pre-trial procedural violations, this book assesses the international criminal tribunals’ law and practice in this regard, thereby identifying points of concern and making suggestions for improvement. In doing so, it considers the proper rationale for responding to procedural violations committed in the pre-trial phase of international criminal proceedings and the merits of judicial discretion in this context, as well as the impact of certain particularities of such proceedings on the determination of the question of how to respond to pre-trial procedural violations.