The Future of International Criminal Justice: An Insider’s View
International Criminal Justice is facing a tipping point. Questions about its efficacy, its efficiency and a hostile political climate are raising doubts about its relevance and, even further, its very existence. The Ukraine and Palestine are stark examples of the current limits of international justice. Andrew Cayley CMG KC has worked on both cases. The speaker has spent the last thirty years of his life prosecuting and defending before the international courts and in the United Kingdom military courts, most recently at the ICC. He will explore the early remarkable successes of the ad hoc tribunals, and related international courts, the vision of a permanent international criminal court and the challenges faced by the reality of that permanent court. This revolutionary legal framework was about limiting the worst effects of armed conflict and protecting individuals from, often state led, massive crimes for which historically there had been no individual criminal responsibility. This will be a direct and honest account of the last three decades of international criminal law which will confront the mistakes and challenges and seek to find a realistic way forwards.
Andrew Cayley is an English and Welsh King’s Counsel. He served in the British army from 1991 to 1998 as an infantry platoon commander in Belize (fortunately heavily supervised by a fantastic Colour Sergeant from the Kings own Royal Border Regiment) and then as a military prosecutor and command legal adviser in Germany and the United Kingdom. From 1996 to 2005 he was Prosecuting Counsel and then Senior Prosecuting Counsel before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He prosecuted cases concerning events in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Kosovo including the first prosecution in respect of genocide for the mass murder of over 8500 men and boys at Srebrenica in July 1995. From 2005 to 2007 Andrew was Senior Prosecuting Counsel at the International Criminal Court and brought the first case before the courts concerning events in Darfur. From 2007 to 2009 he defended in two cases before the international courts including the defence of Charles Taylor, the former President of Liberia. From 2009 to 2013 Andrew was the Chief International Co-Prosecutor of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia prosecuting those responsible for the two million human beings murdered, worked or starved to death by the Khmer Rouge between 1975 and 1979. From 2013 to 2020 Andrew was Director Service Prosecutions, the Chief Military Prosecutor of the United Kingdom, also addressing allegations of war crimes committed by British forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. From 2021 to 2024 Andrew was His Majesty’s Chief Inspector of the Crown Prosecution Service and then from 2024 to 2025 Principal Trial Lawyer at the International Criminal Court. He is now returning to private practice and is a tenant at Temple Garden Chambers in London.
Invitation
