ABSTRACT
Robert M. Pirsig1 Introduction In his 1993 article, Stephen Krasner, reflecting a mainstream neorealist understanding of international relations, asserts that the confrontation between state sovereignty and human rights makes the formation of a viable human rights regime unlikely. According to Krasner, “States have been reluctant to accuse other states of human rights violations because of the danger that their own sovereign control would be undermined.”2 As a result of this statement, one could presume that Krasner regards the establishment of a permanent international criminal court as problematic, subject to manipulation by certain states, and simply an implausible solution to violations of humanitarian law. According to Krasner, nation-states will not relinquish their sovereignty to a transnational court and in regards to the issue of humanitarian law states will continue to set the agenda. From this perspective, the establishment of a permanent international human rights regime is unlikely because it challenges the core constitutive principle of the global system-that is state sovereignty. Counter to Krasner’s argument is the current reality surrounding the establishment of a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC). At the time of writing this text, the Rome Statute for an International Criminal Court has one hundred and thirty-seven signatories and ninety-nine ratifying states.3 The establishment of such an institution creates a tension in which either Krasner’s
1 Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1981), 372-373. 2 Stephen D. Krasner, “Sovereignty, Regimes, and Human Rights,” in Regime Theory and International Relations, ed. Volker Rittberger (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), 164. 3 The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court is the result of the United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenopotentiaries on the Establishment of an International Criminal Court, Rome, Italy, June 15-July 17, 1998. As of June 1, 2005, ninety-nine nationstates have ratified the Statute. See the Appendix for a complete listing of ratifications and
depiction of humanitarian law as an issue-area is incorrect or the mainstream understanding of international relations is inadequate, or both. Thus, the central research questions contained in this text are as follows: 1) what does the formation of a permanent International Criminal Court represent in terms of governance in the contemporary world? 2) What does this suggest about the way in which international relations scholars analyze world politics? In addressing these questions, this text will first and foremost assess the formation of the International Criminal Court as established during the Rome Conference. Second, through an analysis of this case and its formation process, I will draw some conclusions about the changing nature of world politics in terms of the primacy of state actors, authority, governance, and norm construction. In order to accomplish these goals, this text will analyze the ICC formation process from three different analytical approaches: neoliberal institutionalism, regime theory, and global governance. This method of analysis provides my audience with three different readings of the ICC, thus revealing different aspects of this case. The primary purpose of this exercise is not to test the different perspectives in order to ascertain the “best” one, but to employ these three different perspectives in order to ascertain a fuller and richer understanding of this novel institution. With that said, it would be naïve of me to think that this method does not provide any test of these perspectives and their relevancy. By employing them to understand the formation of the ICC, I am judging their ability to understand this particular case. Thus, a secondary accomplishment of this discourse is an elementary form of theory testing at least as these perspectives pertain to this case and this issue-area. The Current Global Context
During the 1980s and 1990s, theorists recognized that something deeper was happening, something more fundamental than a mere interconnectedness among states and between states and individuals…Spurred by technological change and the globalization of economic life, the state is challenged, its sovereignty undermined and constrained, its structures unable to provide the necessary public goods.4
