ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the transformation from a moralist position's hegemonic control to a formalist position that appeared to be both triggered and confirmed by the International Court of Justice's Arrest Warrant judgment. The formalist position's hegemonic control even infiltrated the state 'parties' relationship towards the International Criminal Court, as some of the incorporation acts included universal jurisdiction that accorded with the formalist narrative. The events of 9/11 and its aftermath are read as a rupture that 'intensified the unilateralist agenda [of the United States] and paved the way for a more overt exercise of US state power'. The DRC claimed that the arrest warrant violated immunity of its Minister for Foreign Affairs from foreign criminal jurisdiction and amounted to arbitrary interference in its domestic affairs, violating the maxim par in parem non habet. One of the first contentious issues to be addressed was whether personal immunity applied to a Minister for Foreign Affairs.
