Abstract
Konrad Neugebauer’s thesis explores the international criminal responsibility of domestic judges for their personal involvement in international crimes.
When domestic legal proceedings touch upon conduct that potentially conflicts with international criminal law, it often lies upon the domestic judiciary to render decisions on sensitive issues with ramifications beyond the technical legal question at hand. Justice served domestically can thus easily overlap with, and even constitute, international crimes. Neugebauer draws from some rather obvious historical cases including crimes committed by judges in Nazi Germany, or Apartheid South Africa. His main interest focuses, however, on borderline cases in States prima facie founded on the rule of law. He therewith approaches the boundaries between potentially wrong judicial decisions short of illegality under international criminal law on one hand, and those contributing to international crimes in a justiciable manner on the other. Cases in point are, for instance, the UK High Court's decision not to prosecute Tony Blair for his involvement in the Iraq war; or the decisions of German Administrative Courts that a US-airbase on German soil need not be shut down despite likely facilitating war crimes overseas.
It is against this backdrop that the latest ICJ Order in South Africa v. Israel will have an interesting impact on domestic courts, before which matters such as on preventive duties of foreign governments are brought. The plausibility of genocide claims coupled with the provisional measures ordered arguably constitute a de-facto authority vis-à-vis domestic courts. While not amounting to a precedent in the domestic realm in the formal sense, this ICJ order has implications on domestic jurisprudence that lay bare the cornerstones of the responsibility of domestic judges, all while drastically limiting the ambit for potential arguments of ignorance or non-compliance therewith.
Bio
Neugebauer is a German trained lawyer and PhD candidate in international law at Potsdam University Law School (supervisor: Professor Andreas Zimmermann), where he has been a junior researcher in the Berlin-Potsdam research group 'The International Rule of Law – Rise of Decline?'. He currently works in the field of the promotion of the rule of law for the German Development Agency (GIZ) in Dakar, Senegal and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. From May on, he will serve as a judge in Berlin.