Twenty years after the coming into force of the Rome Statute, not much has been written on its impact on the country level, neither is there consensus on the goals of the ICC. This thesis seeks... Show moreTwenty years after the coming into force of the Rome Statute, not much has been written on its impact on the country level, neither is there consensus on the goals of the ICC. This thesis seeks to put forward a framework for assessing the impact of the Rome Statute, by measuring four types of impact: systemic effect on domestic legal systems; transformative effect on peace processes (such as through including the rights of victims); reparative effect for victims; and a demonstration effect on affected populations. The thesis measures these effects mainly in four countries: Afghanistan, Colombia, Libya and Uganda. Sources include (legal) literature, policy papers, news stories and interviews. The thesis concludes that while there is some normative impact of the Rome Statute and the ICC, in the form of systemic and transformative effect, it is undermined by lack of societal impact, mainly due to negative perceptions among affected population (demonstration effect) and lack of impact on victims (reparative effect). The thesis also makes a preliminary conclusion that the impact of the Court may have been the most in the country where it was needed the least (Colombia, which has a fairly robust legal system). Show less
Drawing on several years of field-based research, this dissertation examines what effects framing the International Criminal Court as a “catalyst” for domestic investigations and prosecutions has... Show moreDrawing on several years of field-based research, this dissertation examines what effects framing the International Criminal Court as a “catalyst” for domestic investigations and prosecutions has had in three distinct situation-country contexts: Uganda, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It examines how both state and non-state actors have relied upon the principle of complementarity as the logic through which the Court’s catalytic potential can be best realized, as well as a transnational site and adaptive strategy for entrenching the norm of international criminal accountability domestically. In so doing, it asks three principal research questions. First, how has the understanding of complementarity evolved since the ICC’s inception and what role have non-state actors, in particular, played in this evolution? Second, how have ICC judges understood and interpreted complementarity’s requirements in the courtroom, and how has the Office of the Prosecutor sought to implement it as a matter of policy? And third, to what extent and how have the ICC’s interventions in Uganda, Kenya and the DRC affected these countries’ institutional and normative frameworks for carrying out domestic criminal proceedings? Show less
