How Activists Shaped The International Criminal Court

international | crime and justice | other press Saturday September 25, 2004 12:41 by redjade

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The establishment of the International Criminal Court is the greatest advance in international law of the last decade. Though ultimately it was states that brought the court into being by ratifying its statute, the Court would not have emerged in the way it did without the active participation of groups and individuals from the realm of global civil society. Indeed, the development of a new conception of international law based on the protection of individuals, which the court embodies, and the emergence of a global civil society are processes that are intimately connected. An examination of the role of global civil society in the development of the International Criminal Court can shed light on the relationship between law-making and political participation in today’s world.

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In 1995, the Coalition for an International Criminal Court (CICC) was founded, bringing together organizations and individuals who supported the establishment of a strong and independent ICC. In the following years, when the negotiations for an ICC were getting serious, the Coalition and its members made a strong effort at the national and sometimes even at the local level to promote the Court in the media. Big-membership organisations like Amnesty International and the World Federalist Movement, and some of the churches including the Quakers and Mennonites, disseminated the ideas behind the Court to their millions of members.

At the culmination of the negotiations on the Court at the Rome conference in June-July 1998, no fewer than three daily news teams set up camp, one of which, On The Record, was also e-mailed to about 4,000 subscribers. While it would be a gross exaggeration to suggest that the population of the world was aware of the negotiations for an international criminal court, the involvement of global civil society did succeed in raising awareness far beyond the small circle of diplomats who were professionally involved.

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