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Introduction: Beyond the Practice-Norm Gap

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Norm Contestation, Sovereignty and (Ir)responsibility at the International Criminal Court

Part of the book series: Norm Research in International Relations ((NOREINRE))

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Abstract

This opening chapter offers an overview of the book’s intended contribution. Grappling specifically with the norm of sovereignty as responsibility, the book seeks to advance a critical constructivist understanding of norm development in international society, as opposed to the conventional constructivist (mis)understanding that still dominates the mainstream debate. Against this backdrop, the book delves into the institutionalization of sovereignty as responsibility within the lived practice of the International Criminal Court (ICC). More to the point, it revives questions about the power-laden nature of the normative fabric of international society, its dis-symmetries, and its outright hierarchies, in order to devise an original framework to operationalize research on how practice—notably, institutional practice—impinges on norm development. To this end, the book resorts to an original creole vocabulary, which, as outlined in the chapter, combines the contributions of post-positivist constructivist scholars with the legacy of key post-modernist thinkers, as well as post-colonial studies, and critical approaches to International (Criminal) Law.

Norms lie in the practice

—Wiener (2018, 27)

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For a discussion about the differences between modernist and post-modernist orientations within critical theory, see Price and Reus-Smit 1998, 261–262. Roughly said, the two authors see modernist orientations as embracing a posture of ‘minimal foundationalism’ (Hoffman 1991, 170). In other words, albeit modernist approaches acknowledge the contingent nature of all knowledge, as well as the connection between morality and power, they, nevertheless, hold that some criteria are needed to distinguish plausible from implausible interpretations, and minimal (consensually-based) ethical principles are required for meaningful emancipatory political action. Post-modernist orientations, instead, reject all kinds of foundationalism.

  2. 2.

    Similar considerations have inspired the 27th Annual SLS/BIICL Workshop on Theory & International Law, ‘The Return of the ‘S’ Word: Sovereignty in Contemporary International Law’, held on 16 May 2018 at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law.

  3. 3.

    Article 2.7 of the UN Charter grants to states the right to exercise criminal jurisdiction over acts within their jurisdiction.

  4. 4.

    At the end of 2017, the 16th Assembly of States Parties also activated the ICC jurisdiction with respect to the crime of aggression, with effect from 17 July 2018, on the basis of the definition and ratification process previously agreed at the Kampala Review Conference in 2010. However, see Sect. 3.2.1 of Chap. 3, for some cursory critical remarks about the limits of this achievement.

  5. 5.

    However, for an account of the limits of Buchanan’s approach, see Sutch (2012).

  6. 6.

    The 15th ASP was held at The Hague between 16 and 24 November 2016.

  7. 7.

    In order to protect the interviews from public exposure, all the interviews took place under a confidentiality agreement.

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    Emanuela Piccolo Koskimies

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Piccolo Koskimies, E. (2022). Introduction: Beyond the Practice-Norm Gap. In: Norm Contestation, Sovereignty and (Ir)responsibility at the International Criminal Court. Norm Research in International Relations. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85934-3_1

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