ABSTRACT
Robert Keohane1 Introduction The formation of the International Criminal Court is clearly the result of international cooperation. From the inception of the Preparatory Committee, through Rome, and now to the current initiation of ICC work, there are numerous examples of international cooperation among nation-states. One of the goals of this text is to try and understand this cooperative formation process by engaging several different analytical perspectives. The question that I must first address is which analytical perspectives to engage? The field of international relations is so ripe with analytical and theoretical perspectives that one is often left baffled by which perspective is most relevant to the project at hand. However, in this case I believe that the choice is quite clear. If we are going to analyze the formation of an international institution like the ICC, then we must first engage the mainstream theory on regime formation and cooperation-neoliberal institutionalism. In general, international relations scholars would consider neoliberal institutionalism to be the mainstream theory concerning cooperation and international organizations.2 International relations scholars have employed this theory to not only analyze existing cooperation, but also to advocate cooperation among states. It was not until the 1980s that the contemporary theory of neoliberal institutionalism finally began to take shape. Through the work of scholars like
1 Keohane, After Hegemony, 10. 2 Hasenclever, Mayer and Rittberger, Theories of International Regimes, 23, state that neoliberalism “has come to represent the mainstream approach to analyzing international
Robert Keohane, Robert Axelrod, Arthur Stein, and others, this theory of international relations has become a primary counter-theory to Kenneth Waltz’s neo-realism.3 With the end of the Cold War and the subsequent understanding that cooperation amongst international actors is possible, it appears as if neoliberal institutionalism is finding a new core of followers. The formation of institutions like the ICC appears to provide neoliberal scholars with a new set of relevant cases. As a result of these factors, it appears that neoliberalism is in some ways experiencing a renaissance in the post-Cold War era. Neoliberal institutionalism main goal is to understand cooperation amongst international actors, despite the existence of an anarchical system.4 In order to achieve this goal, neoliberalism analyzes the international system through the use of six guiding principles:
1. The global system is anarchical in its structure. 2. States are the primary actors in international relations, although international non-
state institutions do play a significant role. 3. States are rational-unitary actors, but they also share complementary interests with
other states. 4. In so far as these complementary interests exist, cooperation among states is
possible and this cooperation often occurs under the auspices of international organizations in order to diminish cheating, create iterativeness, and reduce costs of transactions.
