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The ICC's Potential for Doing Bad When Pursuing Good

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 April 2012

Extract

The International Criminal Court (ICC) seeks to end impunity for the atrocity crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, and, eventually, crimes of aggression. My contribution to this discussion takes a consequentialist view to outline ethical hazards confronting the court. Since the ICC has only recently begun to operate, with its first suspect, Thomas Lubanga Dyilo of the Democratic Republic of Congo, arriving in The Hague in 2006 and his trial completed only in the fall of 2011 (and awaiting a verdict in 2012), it is too early to reach a general appraisal of the court's effects.

Type
Roundtable: The Political Ethics of the International Criminal Court
Copyright
Copyright © Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs 2012

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References

NOTES

1 Abbott, Kenneth, Keohane, Robert, Moravcsik, Andrew, Slaughter, Anne-Marie, and Snidal, Duncan, “The Concept of Legalization,” International Organization 54, no. 3 (2000), pp. 401–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Compare Feinstein, Lee and Lindberg, Tod, Means to an End: U.S. Interest in the International Criminal Court (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2009), chap. 3Google Scholar.

3 Guan, Jing, “The ICC's Jurisdiction over War Crime in Internal Armed Conflicts: An Insurmountable Obstacle for China's Accession?Penn State International Law Review 28, no. 4 (2010), pp. 703754Google Scholar.

4 Ramesh Thakur, “International Criminal Justice: At the Vortex of Power, Norms and a Shifting Global Order” (Pretoria: Institute for Security Studies, forthcoming).

5 See, e.g., Easterly, William, The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (New York: Penguin Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

6 Sarah Nouwen, comments to the International Law Association 74th Conference, The Hague, August 15–20, 2010, ICC Panel “Peace vs. Justice: Friends or Foes”; ila2010conference.blogspot.com/2010/08/international-criminal-court-panels.html.

7 Bouwknegt, Thijs and Walker, Richard, “Fatou Bensouda: ICC Crimes Monitor,” International Justice Tribune 128 (May 25, 2011), p. 6Google Scholar.

8 For example, Robertson, Geoffrey, Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice (New York: The New Press, 1999), pp. 73, 285–89Google Scholar.

9 UN Security Council Resolution 1593 (2005).

10 UN Security Council Resolution 1970 (2011).