State Behavior and the International Criminal Court

State Behavior and the International Criminal Court PDF Author: Franziska Boehme
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100059338X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
This book analyzes patterns and causes of state cooperation with the International Criminal Court. The work focuses on several African cases, including those against leading state officials, to dive into current debates about compliance with international law and resistance to international courts. The book, which draws on interview data collected in The Hague, Kenya, and South Africa, reveals the diversity of state behaviors ranging from full compliance and diplomatic support to partial compliance to resistance and exit. This redirects the widespread narrative about African resistance against the ICC to include evidence of continued Court support. It is argued that the degree of cooperation the Court receives is affected by a government’s perceived costs and benefits of executing an ICC request: a cooperation request is considered high cost or low cost depending on the suspect’s position, the type of action requested, and the government’s domestic and regional policy objectives. In response, the Court has been careful not to alienate states further, thus highlighting that the Court is both above and below the state: having the power to charge individuals including state officials, but relying on governments—sometimes those from which suspects come—to take action on behalf of the Court against the same suspects. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers, and policymakers working in the areas of international law, human rights, international criminal justice, and international relations.

State Behavior and the International Criminal Court

State Behavior and the International Criminal Court PDF Author: Franziska Boehme
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100059338X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 152

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Book Description
This book analyzes patterns and causes of state cooperation with the International Criminal Court. The work focuses on several African cases, including those against leading state officials, to dive into current debates about compliance with international law and resistance to international courts. The book, which draws on interview data collected in The Hague, Kenya, and South Africa, reveals the diversity of state behaviors ranging from full compliance and diplomatic support to partial compliance to resistance and exit. This redirects the widespread narrative about African resistance against the ICC to include evidence of continued Court support. It is argued that the degree of cooperation the Court receives is affected by a government’s perceived costs and benefits of executing an ICC request: a cooperation request is considered high cost or low cost depending on the suspect’s position, the type of action requested, and the government’s domestic and regional policy objectives. In response, the Court has been careful not to alienate states further, thus highlighting that the Court is both above and below the state: having the power to charge individuals including state officials, but relying on governments—sometimes those from which suspects come—to take action on behalf of the Court against the same suspects. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers, and policymakers working in the areas of international law, human rights, international criminal justice, and international relations.

Rough Justice

Rough Justice PDF Author: David Bosco
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199844143
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Ten years ago, in the wake of massive crimes in central Africa and the Balkans, the first permanent international criminal court was established in The Hague despite resistance from some of the world's most powerful states. In the past decade, the court has grown from a few staff in an empty building to a bustling institution with more than a thousand lawyers, investigators, and administrators from around the world. Despite its growth and the backing of more than 120 nations, the ICC is still struggling to assert itself in often turbulent political crises. The ICC is generally autonomous in its ability to select cases and investigate crimes, but it is ultimately dependent on sovereign states, and particularly on the world's leading powers. These states can provide the diplomatic, economic, and military clout the court often needs to get cooperation-and to arrest suspects. But states don't expend precious political capital lightly, and the court has often struggled to get the help it needs. When their interests are most affected, moreover, powerful states usually want the court to keep its distance. Directly and indirectly, they make their preferences known in The Hague. Rough Justice grapples with the court's basic dilemma: designed to be apolitical, it requires the support of politicians who pursue national interests and answer to domestic audiences. Through a sharp analysis of the dynamics at work behind the scenes, Bosco assesses the ways in which powerful states have shaped the court's effort to transform the vision of international justice into reality. This will be the definitive account of the Court and its uneven progress toward advancing accountability around the world.

Rules, Politics, and the International Criminal Court

Rules, Politics, and the International Criminal Court PDF Author: Yvonne Dutton
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134124392
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
In this new work, Dutton examines the ICC and whether and how its enforcement mechanism influences state membership and the court’s ability to realize treaty goals, examining questions such as: Why did states decide to create the ICC and design the institution with this uniquely strong enforcement mechanism? Will the ICC’s enforcement mechanism be sufficient to hold states accountable to their commitment so that the ICC can realize its goal of ending impunity for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes? Will states view the ICC’s enforcement mechanism as a credible threat and refuse to join unless they already have good domestic human rights practices and institutions that are independent and capable of prosecuting human rights abuses? If states that most need to improve their domestic legal practices as relates to protecting against human rights abuses do not join the court, is there any hope that the threat of punishment by the ICC can play a role in bettering state’s human rights practices and deterring individuals from committing mass atrocities? This work provides a significant contribution to the field, and will be of great interest to students and scholars of international law, international relations, international organizations and human rights.

The International Criminal Court at the Mercy of Powerful States

The International Criminal Court at the Mercy of Powerful States PDF Author: Res Schuerch
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9462651922
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
This book aims to investigate whether, and if so, how, an institution designed to bring to justice perpetrators of the most heinous crimes can be regarded a tool of oppression in a (neo-)colonial sense. To do so, it re-invents the concept of neo-colonialism, which is traditionally associated more with economic or political implications, from an international criminal law perspective, combining historical, political and legal analyses. Allegations of neo-colonialism in relation to the International Criminal Court (ICC) became widespread after the Court had issued an arrest warrant against the Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir in 2009. While the Court, since its entry into function in 2002, has been confronted with criticism from various corners, the neo-colonialism controversy was sparked by African stakeholders. Unlike other contributions in this domain, thus, this book provides a Western perspective on an issue more often addressed from an African standpoint, with the intention of distinguishing itself from the more political and emotive and sometimes superficial arguments that exist within critical legal approaches towards the ICC. The subject matter will primarily be of interest to scholars of international criminal law or those operating at the intersection of law and politics/history, nationals of African states and from other parts of the world professionally interested and/or involved in international criminal law and justice and the ICC, and governmental and non-governmental organizations. Secondly, the book will also appeal and speak to critical legal scholars and those interested in historical legal analysis. Res Schuerch is a Swiss lawyer specialized in the field of International Criminal Law and the ICC. He previously worked as a researcher at the University of Amsterdam and as an academic assistant at the University of Zürich.

States of Justice

States of Justice PDF Author: Oumar Ba
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9781108738835
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book theorizes the ways in which states that are presumed to be weaker in the international system use the International Criminal Court (ICC) to advance their security and political interests. Ultimately, it contends that African states have managed to instrumentally and strategically use the international justice system to their advantage, a theoretical framework that challenges the "justice cascade" argument. The empirical work of this study focuses on four major themes around the intersection of power, states' interests, and the global governance of atrocity crimes: firstly, the strategic use of self-referrals to the ICC; secondly, complementarity between national and the international justice system; thirdly, the limits of state cooperation with international courts; and finally the use of international courts in domestic political conflicts. This book is valuable to students, scholars, and researchers who are interested in international relations, international criminal justice, peace and conflict studies, human rights, and African politics.

Power and Principle

Power and Principle PDF Author: Christopher Rudolph
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501708414
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 247

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Book Description
On August 21, 2013, chemical weapons were unleashed on the civilian population in Syria, killing another 1,400 people in a civil war that had already claimed the lives of more than 140,000. As is all too often the case, the innocent found themselves victims of a violent struggle for political power. Such events are why human rights activists have long pressed for institutions such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate and prosecute some of the world’s most severe crimes: genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. While proponents extol the creation of the ICC as a transformative victory for principles of international humanitarian law, critics have often characterized it as either irrelevant or dangerous in a world dominated by power politics. Christopher Rudolph argues in Power and Principle that both perspectives are extreme. In contrast to prevailing scholarship, he shows how the interplay between power politics and international humanitarian law have shaped the institutional development of international criminal courts from Nuremberg to the ICC. Rudolph identifies the factors that drove the creation of international criminal courts, explains the politics behind their institutional design, and investigates the behavior of the ICC. Through the development and empirical testing of several theoretical frameworks, Power and Principle helps us better understand the factors that resulted in the emergence of international criminal courts and helps us determine the broader implications of their presence in society.

The International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court PDF Author: Marlies Glasius
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 113431566X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description
A new examination of the International Criminal Court (ICC) from a political science and international relations perspective. It describes the main features of the court and discusses the political negotiations and the on-going clashes between those states who oppose the court, particularly the United States, and those who defend it. It also makes these issues accessible to non-lawyers and presents effective advocacy strategies for non-governmental organizations. It also delivers essential background to the place of the US in international relations and makes a major contribution to thinking about the ICC’s future. While global civil society does not deliver global democracy, it does contribute to more transparent, more deliberative and more ethical international decision-making which is ultimately preferable to a world of isolated sovereign states with no accountability outside their borders, or exclusive and secretive state-to-state diplomacy. This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of international relations, international law, globalization and global governance.

Reluctant Engagement: U.S. Policy and the International Criminal Court

Reluctant Engagement: U.S. Policy and the International Criminal Court PDF Author: Mark D. Kielsgard
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004189750
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 406

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Book Description
Why has the United States taken such a firm stance against the International Criminal Court (ICC) and expended such diplomatic goodwill in an attempt to dismantle a tribunal that poses no serious risk to its citizens? This book critiques causal ideologies such as American exceptionalism, state sovereignty and laissez-faire capitalism to show how U.S. opposition is driven by pervasive political, legal, historic, military and economic conditioning factors. It shows how U.S. attitudes transcend partisan politics and predicts how the U.S.-ICC relationship will be affected by the economic crisis, shifting international geopolitical power structures, the crisis in the U.S. military, unfolding international human rights law and the “politics of change” promised by the nascent Obama administration.

The International Criminal Court

The International Criminal Court PDF Author: Andrew Novak
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319158325
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 116

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Book Description
This book is about the International Criminal Court (ICC), a new and highly distinctive criminal justice institution with the ability to prosecute the highest-level government officials, including heads of state, even in countries that have not accepted its jurisdiction. The book explores the historical development of international criminal law and the formal legal structure created by the Rome Statute, against the background of the Court’s search for objectivity in a political global environment. The book reviews the operations of the Court in practice and the Court’s position in the power politics of the international system. It discusses and clarifies all stages of an international criminal proceeding from the opening of the investigation to sentencing, reparations, and final appeals in the context of its restorative justice mission. Making appropriate comparisons and contrasts between the international criminal justice system and domestic and national systems, the book fills a gap in international criminal justice study.

The United States and the International Criminal Court

The United States and the International Criminal Court PDF Author: Sarah B. Sewall
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742501355
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
American reluctance to join the International Criminal Court illuminates important trends in international security and a central dilemma facing U.S. Foreign policy in the 21st century. The ICC will prosecute individuals who commit egregious international human rights violations such as genocide. The Court is a logical culmination of the global trends toward expanding human rights and creating international institutions. The U.S., which fostered these trends because they served American national interests, initially championed the creation of an ICC. The Court fundamentally represents the triumph of American values in the international arena. Yet the United States now opposes the ICC for fear of constraints upon America's ability to use force to protect its national interests. The principal national security and constitutional objections to the Court, which the volume explores in detail, inflate the potential risks inherent in joining the ICC. More fundamentally, they reflect a belief in American exceptionalism that is unsustainable in today's world. Court opponents also underestimate the growing salience of international norms and institutions in addressing emerging threats to U.S. national interests. The misguided assessments that buttress opposition to the ICC threaten to undermine American leadership and security in the 21st century more gravely than could any international institution.