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Part I Context, Challenges, and Constraints, 2 The ICC and the Politics of Peace and Justice

Leslie Vinjamuri

From: The Law and Practice of the International Criminal Court

Edited By: Carsten Stahn

From: Oxford Public International Law (http://opil.ouplaw.com). (c) Oxford University Press, 2023. All Rights Reserved.date: 31 March 2023

Subject(s):
International peace and security — Peace keeping — Political violence — NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) — Access to justice

The indictment of sitting heads of state and rebel leaders during active armed conflict has radically altered the debate surrounding international justice. Despite the view now widely held that peace and justice are complementary rather than competing values, conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Sudan, Libya, and Syria have brought home the reality that there are still significant barriers to achieving both peace and justice simultaneously, and that the prospects for enforcing justice are weak when perpetrators of atrocities remain powerful at home. Leading advocacy organizations and the ICC stress the role of international justice in delivering results, especially peace, the rule of law, and stability. This chapter discusses the shift in international justice advocacy from a principle or duty-based logic to one that is results-based. It argues that one way to promote justice may be to postpone it (e.g. through sequencing).

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