Germany's efforts in prosecuting international crimes in Syria. A promising shift from a "No-Safe-Haven" towards a "Global-Enforcer" approach?
Franca Langlet
Master's Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject Law - Penology, grade: 1,4, Maastricht University, language: English, abstract: The purpose of this paper is to evaluate on whether the use of ‘structural investigations’ (in Syria) indicate a promising shift in the German practice of the CCAIL from a ‘no-safe-haven’ towards a ‘global-enforcer’ approach.In order to do so, the following steps will be taken: First, there will be an assessment of the two main legal provisions and their underlying ratio that are relevant for the practice of the CCAIL and their interplay, namely §1 CCAIL (providing genuine universal jurisdiction to German courts for International Crimes) and §153f CCP the prosecutorial discretion given in cases of pure foreign crimes traditionally frustrating §1 CCAIL.36 In a second step, cases that are exemplary for the previous approach will be examined on considerations made and reasons given by the FPG leading to decision to desist from proceeding and the restrictive ‘no-safe-haven’ practice – followed by an evaluation. In a third step, the current prosecutorial strategy – ‘structural investigations’ – and its theory as well as practice will be analysed to assess how the use of ‘structural investigations’ changes the evaluation of the reasons underlying the restrictive practice. The aim is to answer the research question: To what extent ‘structural investigations’ as the current German prosecutorial strategy used to investigate Crimes of International Law (in Syria) operate on the interplay between the prosecutorial discretion (§153f CCP) and the codified universal jurisdiction (§1 CCAIL) to be applied in a proactive – ‘global-enforcer’ – manner?
