JUDGING MORE BY JUDGING LESS

ISSUES AND LIMITS OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT

Abstract

With the International Criminal Court (ICC) losing not only its chance of incorporating the same great powers that decided not to support it at the very start – out of fear of losing dominance – but also about to lose long-time members such as the ones from the African Union, its chances of being a mean of institutionalized punishment against the worst individual crimes of international concern are trembling. Would the ICC obtain better outcomes if it discarded entirely its authority against member governments, and restricted its jurisdiction to cases suggested by the same countries where the crimes had been allegedly committed? The ICC could hence maintain an important role in the canalization of local jurisdictions through common, global rules: this way, even if through selective jurisdiction, it could at least limit and moderate the intentions of member States when dealing with inconvenient local enemies or oppositions. Through an analysis of the jurisdictional past of this institution and a contextualization of its controversial relationship with the United Nations (UN) Security Council, this paper aims to furnish a comparison of available outcomes, and elucidate the aforementioned possibility as an advantageous framework, although less ambitious. An eventual last focus will be put on the risks of the opposite trend, an ambitious but inefficient institution, possibly leading to the legitimization of its failures.