Beyond Borders? The International Criminal Court and the Geopolitics of International Criminal Justice

This article explores how the International Criminal Court (ICC) is shaping justice in geopolitical terms by examining the ICC’s interaction with the concepts of sovereignty and the border. It argues that the ICC’s reliance on state power strengthens the nation-state, and in doing so reinscribes territorial borders and the exclusionary powers of the sovereign state. At the same time, the ICC also supports emerging supranational configurations of power, as it is underpinned by the ideals of cosmopolitanism and universalism, which decouple law from territorial confines. Through its supranational prosecutions, the ICC designates the ‘friends and enemies of mankind’ and thereby contributes to new ‘nomos’ that shapes international space beyond the sovereign border. However, as the ICC remains embedded in a system of nation-states and reliant on more powerful countries, it is often hamstrung by the interests of powerful actors and used as a tool in geopolitical struggles. This means that the ICC inadvertently contributes to neo-liberal border-reconstruction projects that create ‘nomos’ based on emerging amalgamations of power defined by the gap between powerful and weak countries and delineation of the insiders and outsiders of the global world.