At the start of the twenty-first century the story of Africa's engagement with international law was one of marked commitment and meaningful contributions. Africa pioneered new areas of law and legal remedies, such as international criminal law and universal jurisdiction, and gave human rights jurisdiction to a number of new international courts. However, in recent years, African states have mobilised politically and collectively against the regional courts and the International Criminal Court, contesting these institutions' authority and legitimacy at national, regional and international levels. Africa and the Backlash Against International Courts provides the first comprehensive account of this important phenomenon, bringing together original fieldwork, empirical analysis and a critical overview of the diverse scholarship on both international and African regional courts. Moving beyond conventional explanations, Brett and Gissel use this remarkable research to show how the actions of African states should instead be seen as part of a growing desire for a more equal global order; a trend that not only has huge implications for Africa's international relations, but that could potentially change the entire practice of international law.
The book investigates how involvement by the International Criminal Court (ICC) affects efforts to negotiate peace. It offers an interpretive account of how peace negotiators and mediators in two peace processes in Uganda and Kenya sought to navigate and understand the new terrain of international justice, while also tracing how and why international decision-making processes interfered with the negotiations, narrated the conflicts and insisted on a narrow scope of justice. Building on this interpretive analysis, a comparative analysis of peace processes in Uganda, Kenya and Colombia explores a set of general features pertaining to the judicialisation of peace. Line Engbo Gissel argues that the level and timing of ICC involvement is key to the ICC’s impact on peace processes and explains why this is the case: a high level of ICC involvement during the negotiation phase of a peace process delegates politico-legal and discursive authority away from peace process actors, while a low level of ICC involvement during the negotiation phase retains such forms of authority at the level of the peace process. As politico-legal authority enables the resolution of sticking points and discursive authority constructs the conflict and its resolution, the location of authority is important for the peace process. Furthermore, judicialisation also affects the negotiation and implementation of a justice policy, with a narrowing scope for justice accompanying increasing levels of ICC involvement.
At the start of the twenty-first century the story of Africa's engagement with international law was one of marked commitment and meaningful contributions. Africa pioneered new areas of law and legal remedies, such as international criminal law and universal jurisdiction, and gave human rights jurisdiction to a number of new international courts. However, in recent years, African states have mobilised politically and collectively against the regional courts and the International Criminal Court, contesting these institutions' authority and legitimacy at national, regional and international levels. Africa and the Backlash Against International Courts provides the first comprehensive account of this important phenomenon, bringing together original fieldwork, empirical analysis and a critical overview of the diverse scholarship on both international and African regional courts. Moving beyond conventional explanations, Brett and Gissel use this remarkable research to show how the actions of African states should instead be seen as part of a growing desire for a more equal global order; a trend that not only has huge implications for Africa's international relations, but that could potentially change the entire practice of international law.
The book investigates how involvement by the International Criminal Court (ICC) affects efforts to negotiate peace. It offers an interpretive account of how peace negotiators and mediators in two peace processes in Uganda and Kenya sought to navigate and understand the new terrain of international justice, while also tracing how and why international decision-making processes interfered with the negotiations, narrated the conflicts and insisted on a narrow scope of justice. Building on this interpretive analysis, a comparative analysis of peace processes in Uganda, Kenya and Colombia explores a set of general features pertaining to the judicialisation of peace. Line Engbo Gissel argues that the level and timing of ICC involvement is key to the ICC’s impact on peace processes and explains why this is the case: a high level of ICC involvement during the negotiation phase of a peace process delegates politico-legal and discursive authority away from peace process actors, while a low level of ICC involvement during the negotiation phase retains such forms of authority at the level of the peace process. As politico-legal authority enables the resolution of sticking points and discursive authority constructs the conflict and its resolution, the location of authority is important for the peace process. Furthermore, judicialisation also affects the negotiation and implementation of a justice policy, with a narrowing scope for justice accompanying increasing levels of ICC involvement.
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