Corporal Punishments from the Perspective of International Criminal Court in Al-Hassan Case

“Al Hassan Ag Abdoul Aziz Ag Mohamed Ag Mahmoud”, one of the leaders of the Ansar al-Din organization in Mali’s civil war, is now facing two charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes in the International Criminal Court.The implementation of corporal punishments is among his brutal acts. In this respect, we are facing this question that how the criminalization of corporal punishment should be analyzed from the court statute perspective? It is also necessary to unravel the mystery of how to rethink the corporal punishment system in Islamic countries in the light of the recent case. Present research concludes that the nature of corporal punishment implemented by Al-Hassan is compatible with the actus reus and mens rea of crimes against humanity and war crimes. Therefore, the implementation of corporal punishment by Islamic countries cannot be considered an international crime unless there are defined matching elements. However, in line with rethinking corporal punishments, they should come up with a message-oriented perception about the discussed case and pay attention to the expressive function of the court. With regard to various principles and jurisprudence rules such as Mulazeme rule (combination of reason and Sharia) and the Rule of Nafy Sabil (Denying the Domination of Unbelievers over Believers), there will be no doubt that this is an important issue. The importance of this issue and an urgent need for a solution increases with the international human rights organizations’ reactions and protests, considering Islamic governments in the same category as Takfiri groups in the international eyes, as well as the growth of the ohenomenon of Islamophobia.