Three Dangers for the International Criminal Court: A Critical Look at a Consensual Project

Finnish Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 12, pp. 195-247, 2002

29 Pages Posted: 9 Jul 2008 Last revised: 17 Sep 2008

See all articles by Frederic Megret

Frederic Megret

McGill University - Faculty of Law

Date Written: July 6, 2001

Abstract

This article argues that criticism of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has been unduly abandoned to realists and conservatives. Instead, it proposes the contours of a more radical critique of the ICC that takes aim of some of its unquestioned liberal assumptions, including its claimed a-political character and its formalism. It argues that contemporary international criminal justice imports wholesale a number of outdated domestic criminological constructs and that its universalist cosmopolitanism is precarious, if not dangerous. It concludes that a new generation of "experts in horror" will only deliver on some of the promises of international criminal justice by shunning some of the hubris that has become associated with it.

Keywords: International Criminal Court, ICC, international criminal tribunals, international criminal justice, liberalism, formalism, power, politics

JEL Classification: K1, K10, K33, N40

Suggested Citation

Mégret, Frédéric, Three Dangers for the International Criminal Court: A Critical Look at a Consensual Project (July 6, 2001). Finnish Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 12, pp. 195-247, 2002, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1156086 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1156086

Frédéric Mégret (Contact Author)

McGill University - Faculty of Law ( email )

3644 Peel Street
Montreal H3A 1W9, Quebec H3A 1W9
Canada

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