Outline: Currently, none of the provisions of international tribunals/courts addresses the issue of the purposes of punishment and the objectives of the international criminal justice system. This may change with the gradual implementation of the United Nations (UN) declaration “Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” (A/RES/70/1), including Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16 “Promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels”, known as “Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions”. This SDG through its 13 targets interconnected with other SDGs, it provides a new opportunity to advance the international criminal justice sentencing – so far one of the least developed areas in the global rule of law.

This is especially evident when comparing the two systems of national and international criminal justice. National systems of criminal justice are overtly concerned with preservation, restoration and improvement of the public order, and also pursue an important educational function in their attempt to achieve the goals of rehabilitation and social re-integration of individual offenders. In contrast, only in a few international criminal verdicts courts justify the punishment by pointing to the respect of the rule of law, non-discrimination, national reconciliation, restoration of peace in determining the appropriate sentence, and even in fewer cases when it comes to the commutation of a sentence.

Consequently, the workshop’s emphasis is on making such an international war crime sentencing more effective within the limits of its jurisdictional outreach. However inceptive and thus ambiguous that outreach may be – especially in fragile post-conflict states – there is no other way but to pursue social rehabilitation and re-integration for war crime prisoners and restoration by countries in which their sentences are executed or/and in their home countries where such convicts or, let alone, ex-combatants eventually will make their living. Only this approach may glocally advance the major transformative objective of the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda with its rhetoric-to-reality challenge that no one will be left behind to attain the goals Member States have promulgated and now address.

 

Objectives of the workshop:

1. to address and reassess through the spectrum of targets focussed on by SDG 16, how to contribute to the establishing of a more comprehensive interdisciplinary international criminal sentencing and crime prevention framework for the implementation of the United Nations Charter that in its preamble determined to:

• save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and
• reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and
• establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and
• promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.

 

2. to contribute to ensure, that “learners acquire knowledge and skills needed to promote sustainable development, including among others through education for sustainable development and sustainable lifestyles, human rights, gender equality, promotion of a culture of peace and non-violence, global citizenship, and appreciation of cultural diversity and of culture’s contribution to sustainable development“ (SDG 4.7).

 

Method: Based on a Socratic logical model of progressive human development, the workshop participants analyse one exemplary case of international criminal justice sentencing. The instructor in a series of sequentially staggered interrelated “what-why/if-how” questions prompts workshop participants to self-respond to best possible options to advance the solutions of a particular case in an action-oriented practical, generic and, ultimately, universalistic manner chartered by the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda.

 

Conduct of the workshop: Depending on the local didactic approach, this 6-part workshop may comprise up to 16 classes (each class 45’) with multimedia presentations, students’ final “verdict”, Q & A, and instructor’s final presentation. Monitored by the Dean’s Office, the appointed Course Assistant communicates before its start with all registered attendees, and enlists their involvement in the preparation for the workshop by collecting students’ declarations of the cognizance of the hyperlinked pre-workshop material.

 

Input: The war crime case in question entails issues and inputs from Public International Law, Criminology and Criminal Justice; newspaper commentaries and other media reports.

Output: The workshop participants will receive consolidated, evidence-based action-oriented crime prevention progressive expertise and intercultural competence involving:

• conceptually, ability of self-critical assessment of defendants’ court actions, sentencing facts, court’s verdict involving commission of violent and other crime and its ramifications in terms of international sentencing and general/intergenerational crime prevention;
• technically, drafting of a new court verdict reflecting the above comprehensive international criminal justice SDG approach, at the global and local/domestic levels.

 

Other results: While the workshop provides practical what and why knowledge on ways and means of making crime prevention work, the how part of the course offers generic knowledge and skills for negotiating and producing the rule-of-law outcomes by students aiming at such deliverables and careers in various legal cultures and systems. The course facilitates the identification of international opportunities for networking and profiling own domestic/professional interests in implementing the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda.

 

Prerequisites: Post-graduate students must have a fluent command of the English language to read the background material sent in advance of each session, so as to reflect on their own first answers, and to appreciate instructor’s questions; in the interest of combining and operationalizing general knowledge for practical applications passed exams in Criminal Law, Law of Criminal Procedure, and Public International Law necessary; substantive preparation for each course required, and assessed for advanced discussions, as per the annotated programme (separate).

 

Preferences: Post-graduate law course and other faculties’ students, assistants, Ph.D. candidates with a genuine interest in the United Nations precepts of international and intercultural cooperation.

 

Grades: Registered and participating students who in writing confirm before the workshop’s start their cognizance of its hyperlinked publications and video footage, after completing the workshop and successfully answering the follow-up test are eligible to receive a Certificate of Participation. They may also receive Lecturer’s Letter of Recommendation, when top-graded. However, those workshop attendees who do not wish to apply for one or the other recognition, are welcome as free listeners.

 

Assets: Passed exam in criminal law and public international law; interest and creative ideas to spearhead international Crime Prevention, according to the UN objectives.

 

Dr hab.(Law/Criminology, Poland) Sławomir REDO worked for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (1981- 2011). As a UN Senior Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Expert, he was involved in technical assistance projects implementing the United Nations law against organized crime in Central Asia. In other capacities he assisted in crime prevention cooperation between developing countries (South-South); urban crime prevention; abolition of the death penalty; crime prevention and civilian private policing; virtual forum against cybercrime; on-line international crime prevention and criminal justice education. He has often been guest lecturer/speaker at many universities and institutes worldwide. He has published about 80 articles, 4 books, coedited five other books, mainly on the United Nations law and practice of crime prevention and criminal justice; Member of The United Nations Studies Association; the American Society of Criminology – a non-governmental organization in consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council. He teaches law students at the universities in Austria, China, and Poland.