The legal value of international agreements in the criminal field

Abstract

This study addressed the issue of the legal value of international agreements in the criminal system, by extrapolating the status of international agreements from the hierarchy of laws, as to whether international agreements have a legal value equivalent to ordinary legislation or whether they are superior to it and are in a lower rank than the constitution, in an attempt to subject international agreements to the constitution and its principles, the most important of which is the principle of Legitimacy in its two aspects, substantive and procedural; and whether the principle of legitimacy allows international agreements to be a source of criminalization, punishment and criminal procedures by clarifying the position of substantive legitimacy in criminalization and punishment regarding whether agreements are a source for them or not, at a time when the principle of procedural legitimacy accepts that international treaties be a source of criminal procedures at a time when they impose Comparative constitutional courts hypothesize the distinction between the idea of ​​direct rescueability and the non-direct rescueability of the provisions of the agreement, where it is conceivable that the texts of the international agreement that are directly rescueable are a source of criminal procedures and their absolute rejection with regard to criminalization and punishment.