Response to Yacoubian

 

Dawn Rothe

Western Michigan University

 

This commentary is intended to address several points made in George Yacoubian’s recent article, “Toward the Prosecution of Terrorists Before the International Criminal Court: Resisting the Slippery Slope of Jurisdictional Cacophony” (The Critical Criminologist, Vol. 12, Issue 4). When criminologists attend to topics such as international social controls, international law, international politics, and the ICC, it is essential that we do not fall prey to producing/reproducing privileged frameworks of understanding. The notion of an international community does just that.

The term “international community” is a conceptual quagmire that promotes a problematic ideology and distorted image of international relations. This is perhaps most egregious when the term is used as a broad umbrella without specificities or fluidity of its membership within specific historical contingencies. The inclusion of such a general “community” fails to articulate specific actors, creates a generic unity and/or body, and implies mutual values and goals. This misrepresents political relationships (international law, international politics, or international institutions) and can thus fall prey to being analysed via a dominant “US” political ideology. This can lead to over generalizations and act as a guise for underlying assumptions.

Generalized statements such as “international community”, “leading states”, and “Third World nations” fail to illuminate the contradictions that exist within international relations, fail to provide factual accounts of said actors, and misrepresent global power relations. We are left to question who the leading states were that had the like mindedness of the US position on international law codification, what “Third World” countries were only concerned with intranational atrocities versus a mutual concern over international political relationships, and what leading states were primarily concerned with international law as a protection for democratic states? Perhaps more significant than these questions that have been left in a void of generalizations remains what “international community” sought to establish a permanent ICC since the end of WWI? The significance to defining “international community” is imperative for these types of statements as the US was clearly not a member of that supporting “international community”, thus leading to divergent conclusions. An example of how these inconclusive terms can misrepresent facts and portray a false image is distinguished in the conclusion drawn that as the US values democracy and human rights it thus ignores or attacks the ICC to protect its sovereignty. Indeed, sovereignty is an issue for the US but it serves as a guise to ensure its political and economic interests can be attained without being constrained or penalized by other states at the international level.

It is essential that criminologists examine potential venues for social control such as the ICC. Just as importantly, alternative means for handling international atrocities need be investigated (e.g. the recent US “war on terrorism” versus utilizing the ICC to prosecute the alleged terrorists). However, when these issues are examined and offered for debate, criminologists must be cautious to avoid generalizations that unwittingly privilege the ideological imperatives and/or support the hegemony of the favorite state.