UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

The gravity criterion for admissibility in the law and practice of the International Criminal Court

Urs, Priya; (2021) The gravity criterion for admissibility in the law and practice of the International Criminal Court. Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).

[thumbnail of 2021_Urs_PhD Thesis_Repository.pdf] Text
2021_Urs_PhD Thesis_Repository.pdf
Access restricted to UCL open access staff until 1 August 2024.

Download (1MB)

Abstract

The gravity of a crime or case features in various international and national legal frameworks for the investigation and prosecution of international crimes. At the International Criminal Court, gravity takes the form of an admissibility criterion of the sufficient gravity of a case in Article 17(1)(d) of the Rome Statute. This thesis addresses the question how this admissibility criterion of sufficient gravity is to be applied in the context of the Prosecutor’s decisions whether to investigate and whether to prosecute. It first ascertains how the gravity of potential or actual cases is assessed in practice. On the basis of this analysis, it proposes, where necessary, a more coherent and persuasive application of the gravity criterion as part of the Prosecutor’s respective decisions whether to investigate and to prosecute. The answer to this question bears in turn on the question of the function of the gravity criterion in this context, which the Court has considered to be the exclusion of cases of ‘marginal gravity’ only. Ultimately, the thesis argues for a recalibration of the application and a reconsideration of the function of the gravity criterion when applied in the context of the Prosecutor’s respective decisions whether to investigate and to prosecute. First, identifying appropriate indicators of the gravity of potential or actual cases, it contends that the application of Article 17(1)(d) involves a subjective assessment that calls for the exercise of discretion. This discretion facilitates the judicious allocation by the Prosecutor of scarce investigative and prosecutorial resources to exclude more than just marginal cases. Secondly, it clarifies the respective roles of the Prosecutor and the Pre-Trial Chamber in the assessment of gravity in different contexts, arguing that the Prosecutor enjoys considerable discretion in the making of this assessment compared with the limited powers of judicial oversight conferred on the Pre-Trial Chamber.

Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Qualification: Ph.D
Title: The gravity criterion for admissibility in the law and practice of the International Criminal Court
Event: UCL (University College London)
Language: English
Additional information: Copyright © The Author 2021. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of Laws
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10131345
Downloads since deposit
1Download
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item