A Comparative Study of Victim Access to Justice Under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023 and the International Criminal Justice System
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66838/sauc.6502Keywords:
Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), Rome Statute, International Criminal Court (ICC), Victimology, Restorative Justice, Procedural Standing, Trust Fund for Victims, SDG 16.Abstract
Traditional common-law adversarial systems have historically relegated the victim of a crime to the margins of the trial, conceptualizing crime primarily as an offense against the sovereign state. In contrast, modern international criminal justice—most notably codified in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC)—recognizes victims as autonomous procedural actors with substantive participatory, protective, and reparative rights. With the enactment of the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), 2023, India replaced the colonial-era Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), 1973, introducing statutory shifts intended to center the victim within domestic procedural law. This paper provides a comparative legal analysis of victim access to justice under the BNSS and the International Criminal Justice System, benchmarked against the UN Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power (1985) and UN Sustainable Development Goal 16 (Peace, Justice, and Strong Institutions).....
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