Responsibility for leadership in the Peace Agreement signed by the Colombian Government and the FARC-EP: an analysis based on the Bemba case of the International Criminal Court

Abstract

This article discusses the rules on command responsibility issued within the
implementation of the Peace Agreement between the Colombian Government and
the guerrilla group FARC-EP. The objective is to analyse the meaning of those rules,
considering the judgment of the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court in
the Bemba case, decided in June 2018. This text argues that those rules on command
responsibility cannot be an independent basis for criminal liability, and therefore,
applying the ordinary Colombian Criminal Law or International Criminal Law is still
necessary. Those rules on command responsibility should facilitate the articulation
of the international and domestic levels. However, they generate some interpretive
difficulties and exacerbate the tensions on this topic between these two normative
levels.