Book review: The Child in ICC Proceedings
| Author | Rossella Pulvirenti |
| Published date | 01 March 2017 |
| Date | 01 March 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/2032284417699295 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
Book reviews
The Child in ICC Proceedings, Helen Beckmann-Hemzei. Intersentia: Cambridge-Antwerp-Portland, 2015; 293
pp., £65 (pbk).
Reviewed by: Rossella Pulvirenti, University of Nottingham, UK
DOI: 10.1177/2032284417699295
The book ‘The Child in ICC Proceedings’, written by Helen Beckmann-Hemzei, aims to assess
whether the International Criminal Court (ICC) proceedings are child sensitive (i.e. set up in the
best interests of the child) or whether additional child-specific regulations are necessary. The book
focuses mainly on the role of the child in the ICC proceedings, as its title suggests. However, the
book also encompasses several examples of extracts by other international criminal tribunals and
courts, such as the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International
Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Special Court of Sierra Leone.
The book is divided thematically in three parts. The first part focuses on the role of the child in
criminal proceedings as witness, victim, perpetrator and child of an alleged perpetrator. The second
part discusses children in reparation proceedings in their role of claimant, and the last part provides
an evaluation of the capacities of children in the ICC proceedings addressing the highlighted
shortcomings with some final recommendations. The author uses examples from case law and
excerpts from court transcripts. In order to answer her research questions, the author chose the best
available sources in the field because they show both how the ICC proceedings affect children and
what procedure is used by the ICC to interact with children. Due to the combination of these two
sources, the book is able to answer successfully its research questions. In fact, the author identifies
which are the child-sensitive procedures within the ICC framework and recommends some
improvements. For this reason, to date, this book represents the most comprehensive work on the
role of the child in international criminal proceedings. This is so not only because no other
publications exist which provide an overall view of the role of the child before the ICC but also
because of the quantity and quality of cases and examples used.
As far as the methodology is concerned, Beckmann-Hemzei uses both primary and secondary
sources. The author clarifies that the book utilises the sources of international law listed in Article
38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice and, more specifically, human rights law.
However, the methodology used in the book is not always consistent because the author does not
explore in full the relationship between human rights law, the sources of international law and their
relevance for the ICC. For instance, Beckmann-Hemzei explains that the principle of ‘best interest
of the child’ is used as ‘source of inspiration’ and ‘yardstick’ (p. 21) for the determination of the
procedural status of the child in ICC proceedings. Since the book aims to explore whether the
ICC procedures are child-sensitive, the author could clarify how the ‘best interest of the child’,
New Journal of European Criminal Law
2017, Vol. 8(1) 77–80
ªThe Author(s) 2017
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