General Principles of International Criminal Law

The significance of the principles and rules of international law is defined in the Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice. So, the general principles of substantive criminal law can be found in conventions, in customary international law or in general principles of law recognized by all civilized nations. According this, the criminal laws of most states rely on similar concepts and rules: in this sense it can be spoken about universally recognized general concepts that the exact contents of these concepts vary widely from one country to another. This justified observation increases the role of the general principles of criminal law derived from national laws of legal systems of the world. These general principles of criminal law have been developed since the 19 th century primarily by the doctrines and practices of national criminal laws and criminal justice systems.