11 May EJIL Talk! Dissects Ken Anderson’s “The Rise of International Criminal Law: Intended and Unintended Consequences”
I wanted to point our readers to a terrific discussion at EJIL Talk! on our own Ken Anderson’s recent article “The Rise of International Criminal Law: Intended and Unintended Consequences”. Ken’s article “offers a high-altitude, high-speed look at the effects of international criminal law on other parts of public international law and organizations.” EJIL Talk! has solicited two very interesting responses so far, one from Prof. Brad Roth and the other from Amrita Kapur. All three wrestle with a topic I’m also interested in: are there negative externalities, so to speak, from the ubiquity of international criminal law? I think there are, as Jide Nzelibe and I argued here and which I continue to maintain here. Definitely worth checking out.
It is not simply a question of negative externalities. I am a big admirer of Prof. Anderson’s writing on IL topics because he is one of the only writers I read who understands (as I see it anyway) that the delivery of justice–in both form and substance–is first and foremost a political act done by a specific political community, and there in fact in 2010 is no political community able to deliver justice via the loose collection of notions and procedures known as ICL. ICL does not originate from a political community and that is why it is far more susceptible to opportunism than most national justice systems. I believe that proponents of the ICC and the ad hoc tribunals are aware of this but have a long-term interest in simply minimizing this problem in order that more and more “precedent” be established that serves as grist for the mills of the ICL proponents. Running out the clock, as it were, so that with each passing year they feel more secure that a point of no return not only has been reached, but passed.
Thanks Julian for the shout-out – and I am getting my own contribution finished up as we speak! My thanks to Brad Roth and Amrita Kapur for taking part, and to EJILTalk for hosting the discussion. It is so wonderful to have a pair of serious scholars give one’s work a serious read.