Plea bargaining in international criminal courts: dealing with the devil

Nicol, Karen (2016) Plea bargaining in international criminal courts: dealing with the devil. LL.M(R) thesis, University of Glasgow.

Abstract

This thesis examines the practice of plea bargaining in national and international
criminal courts. Plea bargaining is a controversial practice at the national level and that
controversy is escalated when dealing with the most serious crimes, such as genocide, that will
be prosecuted in international criminal courts. There are arguments both for and against plea
bargaining in national adversarial systems. Many of these arguments are also applicable in
international criminal law and there will be further arguments for and against plea bargaining in
international criminal courts that do not apply, or apply only to a lesser extent in national
systems. A balance has to be struck between an efficient criminal justice system and a criminal
justice system that achieves its aims of reconciliation, deterrence and punishment for
perpetrators.
The practice of plea bargaining has been used at the International Criminal Tribunal for
the Former Yugoslavia (hereinafter ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
(hereinafter ICTR). The experiences of these ad hoc tribunals in dealing with the practice must
be taken into account in coalition with the theoretical arguments for and against plea bargaining
to determine a best practice approach to plea bargaining in international criminal law that could
be implemented at the International Criminal Court (hereinafter ICC) and in international
criminal forums generally. Given the resource, time and financial limitations faced by
international criminal courts plea bargaining is a practice that should be implemented to achieve
the correct balance between efficiency and justice. It is acknowledged that the practice of plea
bargaining is a controversial practice, even more so at the international level and as such there
must be safeguards in place to ensure the practice is implemented in a credible manner that
upholds public confidence in the system and achieves the strategic aims of the criminal justice
system.

• Item Type: Thesis (LL.M(R))
• Qualification Level: Masters
• Keywords: Plea bargaining, war crimes.
• Subjects: K Law > K Law (General)
• Colleges/Schools: College of Social Sciences > School of Law
• Supervisor's Name: Leverick, Mrs Fiona
• Date of Award: 2016
• Depositing User: Miss Karen E Nicol
• Unique ID: glathesis:2016-7254
• Copyright: Copyright of this thesis is held by the author.
• Date Deposited: 22 Apr 2016 07:25
• Last Modified: 16 May 2016 10:26
• URI: https://theses.gla.ac.uk/id/eprint/7254