In September 2018, Joëlle Trampert joined the Rethinking SLIC project as a PhD candidate. On Wednesday, the 9 October, at 11.00 am she will publicly defend her PhD dissertation entitled ‘State Responsibility for Complicity in and Other Contributions to International Crimes and Serious Human Rights Violations’ in the Aula - Lutherse kerk in Amsterdam.
The Dissertation
In her thesis, Joëlle examines what it means when a State assists another actor in the commission of international crimes or serious human rights violations for the assisting State’s responsibility under international law. What types of obligations do these other States have, especially if the victim is in another country? Of course, States can lawfully assist other States for the purpose of counter-terrorism, as well as for migration control or (inter)national security. But what happens when the latter cause very serious harm, such as torture, war crimes, or genocide? When will the former incur responsibility for their contributions, and what obligations do States have when they assist States – or non-State actors – in the first place?
Joëlle’s thesis analyses the general complicity rule in the Articles on State Responsibility as well as a number of other rules in selected treaty regimes, ranging from the Genocide Convention to the Arms Trade Treaty and the European Convention on Human Rights. As the threshold for complicity is quite high and complicity can only be established once the harm has occurred, other legal rules are also considered, such as, e.g., rules on arms transfers. By bringing all these rules together, the thesis aims to present a clearer picture of which rules apply when States assist other actors in volatile situations, and how these rules interrelate. The thesis also argues how human rights treaties – which traditionally only apply when the victim was on the territory of the State in question – could be interpreted so as to cover situations of cross-border complicity.
Moving Forward
As of August 2024, Joëlle has joined the department of International and European Law at the University of Amsterdam as Assistant Professor. She will continue to work with the project and will continue her research on matters regarding the (international) responsibility of States in connection with international crimes and serious human rights violations, especially those committed outside the assisting State’s jurisdiction. She has a particular interest in developments concerning States’ extraterritorial jurisdiction under human rights law and questions relating to State responsibility in the context of trade in military, dual-use, and other types of goods.
