Complementarity, Catalysts, Compliance: The International Criminal Court in Uganda, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo

This book explores the International Criminal Court's (ICC) principle of complementarity as a transnational site and adaptive strategy for realizing governance goals. It illustrates how complementarity came to be framed as a catalyst for compliance and its effects on the legal frameworks and institutions of three different ICC situation countries in Africa. It urges a critical rethinking of the ICC's politics and a reorientation towards international criminal justice as a project of global legal pluralism.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 387 pages
Publication date: 16 June 2022
Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Since its establishment at the turn of the century, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been a central preoccupation, striving to catalyze the pursuit of criminal accountability at the domestic level. Drawing on ten years of extensive research, this book theorizes the ICC's principle of complementarity as a transnational site and adaptive strategy for realizing an array of ambitious governance goals. Through a grounded, inter-disciplinary approach, it illustrates how complementarity came to be framed as a catalyst for compliance and its unexpected effects on the legal frameworks and institutions of three different ICC situation countries in Africa: Uganda, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Linking complementarity's law and practice to contemporary debates in international law and relations, the book unsettles international law's dominant progressive narrative. It urges a critical rethinking of the ICC's politics and a reorientation towards international criminal justice as a project of global legal pluralism.

Since its establishment at the turn of the century, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been a central preoccupation, striving to catalyze the pursuit of criminal accountability at the domestic level. Drawing on ten years of extensive research, this book theorizes the ICC's principle of complementarity as a transnational site and adaptive strategy for realizing an array of ambitious governance goals. Through a grounded, inter-disciplinary approach, it illustrates how complementarity came to be framed as a catalyst for compliance and its unexpected effects on the legal frameworks and institutions of three different ICC situation countries in Africa: Uganda, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Linking complementarity's law and practice to contemporary debates in international law and relations, the book unsettles international law's dominant progressive narrative. It urges a critical rethinking of the ICC's politics and a reorientation towards international criminal justice as a project of global legal pluralism.

ISBN-13: 9781108459723