Command responsibility, joint commission and ‘control over the crime' approach in the first ICC jurisprudence

The challenge of bringing to justice high-level individuals responsible for the commission of international crimes has been only partially accomplished over the last two decades. Whereas, on the one hand, it is now possible to bring high-profile perpetrators, such as State leaders like Hissène Habré, Slobodan Milosevic, Jean Kambanda, Charles Taylor and Omar Al Bashir, before international courts and tribunals (something unthinkable before the Pinochet case), on the other hand, it is notoriously difficult to assess the criminal responsibility of such high-level perpetrators. ¹