Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Thesis Format

Monograph

Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Political Science

Collaborative Specialization

Transitional Justice and Post-Conflict Reconstruction

Supervisor

Quinn, Joanna R.

Abstract

Since the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC), it has faced serious problems and has been subject to criticism, particularly from African states. More specifically, some African states have argued that the operation of the Court has produced outcomes that are vastly different from what was imagined and hoped for at the time the Court was negotiated in 1998. The dissertation answers four interrelated research questions: (1) What kind of International Criminal Court (ICC) did African states want prior to and during the Rome Diplomatic Conference in 1998? (2) Why did African states ratify the Rome Statute more than any other region even though they did not get the kind of Court that they wanted? (3) What are the origins of the criticisms levied by African states against the ICC? (4) Why, despite the compromises reached in Rome, and the significant criticism levied against the resultant ICC since, would African states commit and/or stay committed to the Court by signing, ratifying, and implementing the Rome Statute into domestic law more than any other region? The dissertation employs constructivist international relations theory and makes the overall argument that the active and meaningful engagement on the part of African governments and African individuals in the Rome Statute/ICC project from its earliest stages of development has created a deep normative commitment to the resultant Court, which, at times, overrides rationality and self-interest explanations of state behaviour.

Summary for Lay Audience

This dissertation offers insight into the problems facing the International Criminal Court (ICC or Court) from African perspectives. The analytical focus is on the ICC’s interactions in Africa since the only completed cases at the Court have involved African situations and African suspects at the time of writing. The dissertation considers how the ICC was designed and constructed as a result of the multilateral negotiations at the Rome Diplomatic Conference in 1998. It then evaluates how the compromises reached in Rome have or have not affected the resultant Court’s work, especially on the African continent. With this in mind, the dissertation provides answers to the following four questions: (1) What kind of ICC did African states want prior to and during the Rome Diplomatic Conference in 1998? (2) Why did African states ratify the Rome Statute more than any other region even though they did not get the kind of Court that they wanted? (3) What are the origins of the criticisms levied by African states against the ICC? and (4) Why, despite the compromises reached in Rome, and the significant criticism levied against the resultant ICC since, would African states commit and/or stay committed to the Court by signing, ratifying, and implementing the Rome Statute into domestic law, more than any other region? The overall argument is that the active role that African states and African individuals occupied with respect to the ICC project from its earliest stages of institutional development provides an answer to all four questions. The dissertation provides a thorough account of African involvement in the ICC project, including the preferences of African governments at the Rome Diplomatic Conference using a constructivist international relations theoretical approach. Such an understanding provides the necessary backdrop to evaluate the problems facing the ICC in its current institutional form, from the perspective of some African states and/or the African Union based on both rational and normative factors.

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