Socrates. 2020, 1 (16)

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Browsing Socrates. 2020, 1 (16) by Author "Chakhvadze, George"

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    The Interrelation between Sovereign Immunities and Individual Criminal Responsibility in International Criminal Law
    (Rīgas Stradiņa universitāte / Rīga Stradiņš University, 2020) Chakhvadze, George; Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Georgia
    The paper is an opinion article which analyses the essence of the principle of individual criminal responsibility in international criminal law and its key elements. The main focus of this paper is to analyze key moments of the development of the principle of individual criminal responsibility in relation to sovereign immunities. It has been shown that the development of legal doctrine and especially judicial practice greatly contributed to the balance between state sovereignty or state interests and the right of individual criminal accountability. The abolition of sovereign immunities before international courts and tribunals is the salient example of this development. Furthermore, the paper argues that when considering the effect of the principle of individual criminal responsibility and its relation to sovereign immunities, we should make conceptual distinction between personal and functional immunities. With this regard, the analysis of judicial practice clearly indicates that while personal immunity retains their force even before national courts acting on universal jurisdiction, the effect of functional immunities are somewhat restricted: functional immunities lose their power before national courts acting on universal jurisdiction. At the same time, states can abstain from using this right. Thus, the authors argue that despite recent advancements in theory and practice, the application of universal jurisdiction over international crimes still remains one of the main challenges.