II Concept, Function, and Sources of International Criminal Law

This chapter lays the conceptual groundwork for the following chapters, and is written in a both philosophical and jurisprudential ink. It starts with a critical analysis of international criminal law as both concept, discipline and placeholder for an anti-impunity agenda. Certain types of crimes are separated into core crimes on the one hand and treaty-based/transnational crimes and supranational crimes on the other hand. The chapter then proceeds along the lines of the jurisprudential foundations of crime, criminal law and punishment. The author advocates for an autonomous punitive power of the international community as the basis of an autonomous international criminal law. Criminalization is based on the protection of fundamental legal interests or the prevention of serious harm. Punishment has an expressive, norm-stabilizing purpose and is intertwined with more general goals of International Criminal Justice. International Criminal Law’s sources range from customary international law over international treaty law to general principles. The DNA of the chapter is thus an amalgamation of comparative legal concepts with the peculiarities of a ius puniendi that lies at the hear of enterprise of international criminal law.