Abstract In considering the charges brought against Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud, the ICC has been forced to address the question of Islamic criminal law. Following the reasoning of the Prosecution, Trial Chamber X considered Sharia punishments mandated by the Islamic court and implemented by the Islamic police to be evidence of the existence of an organizational policy to commit a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population with the aim of denigrating and subjugating the community in Timbuktu. Trial Chamber X also accepted the Prosecution’s conclusion that applying different forms of Sharia punishments amounted to the crime of torture. Such an expansive view of core international crimes has the potential to send an alienating message to Muslim communities around the world and particularly those countries that apply Sharia criminal law. The overriding narrative of the article does not diminish the harm caused by Ansar Eddine but rather presents an alternative to the Trial Chamber’s and the Prosecution’s reasoning, campaigning for more active engagement with the principles of Sharia. As discussed at length, the duty of an international court is to adapt a multicultural and diverse interpretative guidelines by considering more traditional systems of justice. In that regard, the ICC has yielded to the universalists and Eurocentric agenda by deciding to dismiss Islamic traditions in their entirety. While Sharia based punishments remain shocking for the Western societies, their spiritual, religious, and exonerating value remains poignant for the Muslim majority states and communities. The practices cannot be therefore dismissed, and if looked at in line with the Third World Approaches to International Law could enrich the legal reasoning for future investigations and trials.
Badar et al. (Wed,) studied this question.