Scholars of global constitutionalism have recently come to examine international criminal law (ICL) and its associated institutions, in particular the International Criminal Court (the ICC). This article prolongs these efforts by pointing to and remedying two deficits of that project with particular emphasis on the Rome Statute crimes. First, how does one account for the role of the international trial in global constitutionalist terms? Second, can global constitutionalism insightfully explain the content and scope of these crimes – that is, both their substantive definition and the predominant modes of liability developed by the ICC? This article answers both questions affirmatively and offers an account of their nexus. It first shows that the Rome Statute crimes are often perpetrated through a hierarchically organized apparatus of control, and interprets their global constitutional significance via the principle of constituent power. It then makes use of Antony Duff’s relational account of criminal liability to offer an account of the international trial. In the international context, one can conceive of the trial as allowing state or state-like authorities to call each other to account, which renders justice to the core function of enabling and limiting political authority on which global constitutionalism centres.

The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) has a new mechanism to receive individual complaints and issue views, which makes the question of how the Committee should interpret the broad articles of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights more pressing than ever. Most commentators on the legitimacy of the CESCR’s interpretation have argued that interpreters should make better use of Articles 31–33 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) in order to improve the legitimacy of their findings. In this article, we argue conversely that the individual communication mechanism should be evaluated and reformed in terms of legitimate authority. In the context of the Committee’s process of interpretation, we contend that proportionality is better suited than the various interpretive options of the VCLT to offer a consistent procedure that is able to generate legitimacy by attenuating the tension between personal and collective autonomy.

In this article, I argue against the claim that the practice of the European Court of Human Rights cannot be reconciled with the democratic-procedural standards by which state parties, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity, decide about the content and scope of human rights norms. First, I suggest drawing the attention to the neglected balancing exercise of the review process, in which the Court has to determine whether a violation is nevertheless ‘necessary in a democratic society’. Second, I shed light on the role that ‘pluralism’ plays in the balancing (with particular emphasis on Articles 8–11). Third, I argue that Thomas Christiano’s egalitarian argument for democracy can best illuminate the Court’s reliance on pluralism.

In this article, I test predominant normative approaches to CAH against the notion’s deployment in law. Embarking on this cross-disciplinary project is needed because those the predominant literature fail to address (or were just articulated before) the waves of cases brought before international criminal courts throughout the last decade. I start by examining how international criminal courts have specified the core elements of the definition and then assess if and how the predominant philosophical literature can account for it. I then argue that this legal-empirical inquiry leads to both refining the structure and revisiting the relevant jurisdiction of CAH.

As far as structure is concerned, I distinguish a third but neglected element in the structure of CAH, which I identify as the preparatory conditions of the crimes (the ‘PCs’). In relying on Joseph Raz’ concept of authority, I argue that reconstructing the PCs help to specify what it is about states that those crimes deeply pervert. While the PCs strikingly mirror the systematic and pre-emptive role of the state, those patterns are established to massively persecute, terrorize and finally odiously attack. As far as jurisdiction is concerned, I infer that the agent of CAH and the state in which those crimes occur become ‘answerable’ to the normative community of responsible states (following Anthony Duff’s accountability model). By establishing international trials, this normative community does justice not only to the victims by proving the crimes but also to the perpetrators by treating them as responsible members.