The Surrender of War Criminals to the International Criminal Court

the arrest and surrender of war criminals has received the most attention because of the important consequences these acts have on these individuals.The ICC Statute's requirement that the accused be present for the trial to commence underlines the importance of states to assist with the state's arrest and surrender. 3 The invasive nature of their surrender deprives individuals of liberty and exposes them to a foreign criminal justice system.Thus, arrest and surrender raise issues of efficacy and expediency on the one hand, and individual rights on the other.This Article analyzes the efficacy and expediency of the ICC's surrender regime and its impact on individual rights.In particular, it addresses the scope of the obligation incumbent upon states to provide assistance in arrests that result in effective and expedient surrenders, and to what extent the surrender regime protects war criminals' human rights.A discussion of these issues requires a systematic analysis of the substantive and procedural elements of the ICC surrender regime.In order to fully understand and distinguish the particularities of the ICC surrender regime from extradition law, some knowledge of the overall cooperative relationships between states and the ICC is required.Part II compares some key elements of the ICC cooperation regime with interstate, ICTY, and ICTR legal assistance regimes.Parts III and IV analyze the surrender proceedings at the ICC and national levels.Part V analyzes the duty to surrender as provided in the ICC Statute, and whether the grounds for refusing ICC surrender requests includes traditional extradition.Part VI 3. Article 63 of the ICC Statute provides that the accused shall be present during the trial, although the accused may be removed from the courtroom in exceptional circumstances.(e.g., the accused, if present in the courtroom, disrupts the proceedings).