Politicizing the International Criminal Court

Steven C. Roach is assistant professor in the Department of Government and International Affairs at the University of South Florida. He is the author of Cultural Autonomy, Minority Rights, and Globalization, and editor of Critical Theory and International Relations: A Reader. He has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and is currently finishing a book on the evolution of critical international theory.

• Chapter 1 Introduction: The Global Politics of Criminalizing ViolencePart 2 Part I History and Legal StructureChapter 3 Historical Background: From the League of Nations to the Rome ConferenceChapter 4 Legal Principles and Political IssuesPart 5 Part II Theory and EthicsChapter 6 Legalization, Pragmatic Ethics, and IntegrationChapter 7 Constructing World Society: The Ethics and Politics of Global JuridificationChapter 8 Value Pluralism and Political CosmopolitanismPart 9 Part III Political Legalism: Political Strategies and Policy ArrangementsChapter 10 U.S. Opposition and Strategic AccommodationChapter 11 Religion and Politics: Arab States and the Role of Islamic EthicsChapter 12 A Cooperative Arrangement with the U.N. Security CouncilChapter 13 Conclusion: Toward New Global Political Order

At last social theorists and scientists are taking the International Criminal Court seriously! To those who believe that the ICC can exist distinctly from politics, Steven Roach's insightful and provocative exploration of the Court's relationship to the political will be a wake-up call. That wake-up call, however, has little to do with the pessimism of realpolitik that so dominates the field; it is, instead, an appeal to invest the Court with the right sort of politics—a 'political legalism.'