The Creation of an Ad Hoc Elite: And the Value of International Criminal Law Expertise on a Global Market

Abstract

This article investigates the creation and evolution of a new professional elite within and around the international criminal courts. By professional elite the article refers here to the agents able to move into senior positions and individually exert material and symbolic influence on the development of international criminal law (ICL). Building on a wider internationalization of criminal law and political investments in international institution building, this group of professionals moved from other career paths into the nascent field of ICL. Here they became the drivers of new institutional and legal developments and one of the primary embodiments of the institutional and symbolic authority generated in this field. The influence of this heterogeneous group that consisted of legal professionals, NGO advocates, diplomats and academics often built on the ability to mobilize several different forms of expertise and invest it towards the promise to end impunity.

Keywords: International criminal courts, international criminal law, elites, sociology of law