The German Association for Peace and Conflict Studies has given its 2016 Christiane-Rajewsky Award to Evelyne Schmid’s book Taking Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Seriously in International Criminal Law. Published with Cambridge University Press, this research is the outcome of Dr Schmid’ PhD thesis, which she defended in 2012 under the supervision of Andrew Clapham, Professor of International Law at the Graduate Institute of International relations and Development Studies.

Is the neglect of economic, social and cultural abuses in international criminal law a problem of positive international law or the result of choices made by lawyers involved in mechanisms such as criminal prosecutions or truth commissions? Evelyne Schmid explores this question via an assessment of the relationship between violations of economic, social and cultural rights and international crimes.

Based on a thorough examination of the elements of international crimes, the author demonstrates how a situation can simultaneously be described as a violation of economic, social and cultural rights and as an international crime. Against the background of the emerging debates on selectivity in international criminal law and the role of socio-economic and cultural abuses in transitional justice, she argues that international crimes overlapping with violations of economic, social and cultural rights deserve to be taken seriously, for much the same reasons as other international crimes.

According to Professor Clapham, “the significance of this book is that it makes a very impassioned and coherent argument for paying adequate attention to economic, social and cultural rights in the context of international criminal law”.

Jan Arno Hessbruegge, former Legal Advisor to the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on Human Rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, praises “a meticulous study that provides sound guidance to legal scholars and practitioners who have to consider when and how leaders incur personal responsibility under international criminal law for deliberately trampling on the economic and social rights of their people”.

Dr Evelyne Schmid is now a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer at the University of Basel.

For a complementary and relevant discussion on this book, please read EJIL: Talk!, the blog of the European Journal of International Law.

Full reference: Schmid, Evelyne. Taking Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Seriously in International Criminal Law. Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2015.

Photograph courtesy of the University of Basel.