Willing disorder as a partial defense in international criminal law and the influence from Common law

The theoretical basis of excuses such as “Diminished Responsibility”, “Provocation”, ” intoxication” and “accused mental condition”, is impaired volition. Volitional Impairment as a partial defense is not explicitly mentioned in the Statute of the International Criminal Courts; However, according to the clause 3 of article 31 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court, the court may consider other grounds for impunity and pay attention to the impaired volition from this point of view. Despite the acceptance of concepts such as mental disorder in the legal framework of the International Criminal Court and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, which can expand the range of potential reasons for mitigating the punishment; a very cautious approach has been adopted regarding cases of disturbance of volition in the statute of criminal courts. In fact, according to adhering to the philosophy of establishing strict laws in international crimes, examples of impaired volition have been limited just as a judicial mitigating excuse. This is despite the fact that in the Common law system, especially in the law of England, impaired volition is addressed as a partial excuse (partial defense) in some cases of intentional homicide, and it reduces the punishment for homicide to manslaughter.