Geoff Dancy

Searching for Deterrence at the International Criminal Court

Does the International Criminal Court (ICC) deter acts of violence in the world? To answer this question, this article first distinguishes between three phenomena that are often confusingly grouped together under the heading of ‘deterrence’. These include the termination of ongoing civil wars (compellence), the prevention of atrocity crime recidivism (specific deterrence), and the overall prevention of war and atrocity crimes (general deterrence). The article then assesses whether state commitments to the Rome Statute and ICC intervention in specific contexts can promote these three aims. It presents evidence that the ICC can indeed contribute to violence prevention, though not because of its ability to sanction abusive actors. Instead, the Court’s role as a ‘stigmatizer’ in the international community has likely contributed to declines in certain types of violence over time. As such, the article concludes that the ICC is more important for what it is than what it does.

The impact of criminal prosecutions during intrastate conflict

The International Criminal Court’s interventions have prompted debate about the wisdom of criminally prosecuting combatants while attempting to build peace in conflict-ridden societies. Previous research fails to distinguish between different types of trials. Using a large-N dataset of three types of criminal trials undertaken during internal conflict – domestic security trials of rebels, domestic human rights trials of state agents, and international war crimes trials of both – this article tests a theory of the compellent effect of criminal prosecution on conflict termination. We find that, even when accounting for endogeneity, rebel trials are associated with a higher probability of conflict termination, while trials of state agents are weakly associated with conflict persistence. We argue that the former compel the opposition to discontinue fighting, while the latter signal to rebels a lack of government resolve. We also find that the effect of international trials, which at times appear weakly associated with conflict termination, is endogenous to international intervention more generally.

Human rights pragmatism: Belief, inquiry, and action

Human rights scholars and activists have often been criticized for being “principled” rather than “pragmatic” actors in international politics. Rarely, though, is such criticism accompanied by a discussion of what pragmatism means, or what pragmatic action looks like. This article conceptually traces and defines three aspects of pragmatism — philosophical, methodological, and political — that might be applied to the global human rights discourse. The article then outlines how these aspects can help resolve debates over human rights beliefs, scientific inquiry, and political action. I argue, first, that critics of human rights do not adequately develop the concept of human rights pragmatism, and then I make the case using examples that human rights discourse already lends itself toward a pragmatic train of thought. The implication of this analysis is that the “pragmatist” critique of human rights actors is, at minimum, unfounded and, at maximum, a mask for more pessimistic anti-rights positions.