7 - International Justice in a World of States

Summary

Strategic use of international courts by weaker states becomes a mechanism by which African states have taken advantage of the ICC. This instrumental use of norms of international justice shows that the argument about justice cascade may not be as convincing as previously thought. The supposedly widespread adoption of norms of individual criminal accountability and prosecutions in the wake of massive violation of human rights may actually be symptomatic of an instrumental adoption. Chapter 7 analyzes other ICC situations (DRC, CAR, Mali, Sudan, Burundi, and the Philippines) and South Africa’s and The Gambia’s attempts to withdraw from the Court to highlight the ways in which these cases also support the arguments developed in this book’s analytical framework.