ABSTRACT
As human rights activists lobby daily for a permanent international criminal court (ICC), their oratory is eerily reminiscent of former cold warriors, and hints at an emerging class of global interventionists bent on 'doing something' to stem the world's horrors. Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy of satyagraha, Satyagraha is the term Gandhi coined to describe his philosophy of active non-violence. In combination with social theory, satyagraha offers an ethical and practical response to disorder, suffering, and injustice that eschews inflicting or threatening to inflict violence on others. A signal challenge to the ICC enterprise is the core precept of satyagraha that ends pre-exist in the means. In Gandhi's words, it is a great mistake to believe that there is no connection between the means and the end. Among utilitarian schemes, the ICC lobby relies particularly on deterrence theory, and does so with a level of confidence matched only by theorists' disaffection.
