Specific direction in Perišić and Taylor – The requirement of specific direction in aiding and abetting liability in international criminal law

In 2013, only seven months apart, the Appeals Chambers of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the Special Court for Sierra Leone pronounced their judgments in the cases against Momčilo Perišić and Charles Taylor, respectively. Notably, the two Appeals Chambers applied diverging interpretations of the actus reus of aiding and abetting liability in international criminal law. This thesis explores whether there is a requirement of specific direction in the actus reus of aiding and abetting liability in international criminal law, by analyzing the Perišić and Taylor Judgments the issues that have been frequently debated in the period following the Perišić and Taylor Judgments