Getting to a Global Constitution Expanding Human Rights Law

Abstract

The expansion of the global constitutional principle of no-impunity and its application to serious violations of social and economic rights are part of the process of constitutionalization of global law and its principles through jurisprudential cross-fertilization. The author identifies in the ECJ’s innovative approach to serious tax frauds in the Taricco judgment an opportunity to develop a judicial dialogue between international and national courts aimed at strengthening the paradigm of the no-impunity-imprescriptibility of the new criminal jurisdiction centered on the International Criminal Court (ICC). As announced in the Policy Paper on Case Selection and Prioritisation (PCSP), the ICC will now expand its focus on prosecuting with national governments such serious crimes as “financial crimes”. The ICC is not formally extending its jurisdiction to these cases, but this process has begun—based on the Rome Statute that recognizes that serious international crimes “threaten the peace, security and well-being of the world”.