“We are beckoned to see the world through a one-way mirror, as if we are threatened and innocent and the rest of humanity is threatening, or wretched, or expendable. Our memory is struggling to rescue the truth that human rights were not handed down as privileges from a parliament, or a boardroom, or an institution, but that peace is only possible with justice and with information that gives us the power to act justly.”
John Pilger

Sunday, November 17, 2013

The demise of international criminal law

By Mark Osiel   

Humanity - 11/16/13

We theorists of international law like to pose venturesome, vitalizing questions, sweeping in scope: What would an ideal system of international criminal law look like, for instance, relieved of today’s geostrategic constraints? How might we lend some conceptual coherence to such a program, flesh out its normative details? What kind of world would be required for such a program to become possible, even intelligible? How should we imagine the workings of such a hypothetical world?
If we allow ourselves to descend beneath the clouds for a moment, we may also ask: Precisely how far from that ideal world do we currently reside? How might we realistically begin to construct its preconditions, through what process, by which concrete steps? We might further approach the process social-scientifically, identifying the forces which would set it in motion, hypothesizing the coalition-composition that could advance it and, when unavoidable, devise its prudent tactical retreat. Among the available accounts of global change and theories of institutional design, which of these might give us a better lever on the process, help nudge it along? These are laudable questions, especially the later, more “reality-based,” reflecting at least a bow toward “non-ideal theory,” in that philosopher’s condescending term of art.

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