The Appeals Chamber’s Jurisdictional Judgment in Abd-Al-Rahman and the Issue of Applicable Law at the International Criminal Court

Abstract

On 1 November 2021, the Appeals Chamber of the ICC upheld the notion that, depending on the type of case over which the court exercises jurisdiction, it must use two different bodies of substantive law to evaluate whether certain conduct is criminal and, hence, whether the court has the power to prosecute and convict individuals for such conduct. This contribution argues that this bifurcation in the substantive law applicable at the ICC leads to disconcerting results, no sound normative principle supports it, and it does not correspond to the design of the creators of the court.