The International Criminal Court, empowered to prosecute individuals
guilty of the worst human rights atrocities, has encountered firm
resistance from the United States. Underlying this dispute is a clash
between two different models for achieving the global enforcement of
human rights: a collective enforcement model exemplified by the Court,
and a unidirectional enforcement model favored by the US. Both models
present difficulties, but those of the collective model are curable, while
those of the unidirectional model are not. Since the ICC cures the most
significant difficulties associated with the collective model, it deserves
US support. This paper addresses several of the specific legal, moral,
and political controversies that have surfaced in debates over the ICC.
Is the demand for justice likelier to cause or to prevent war? Hobbes expresses sympathy for the former view and Locke for the latter. However, they both reason their way toward an intermediate position, symbolized by the impartial judge in Locke's theory and the arbitrator in Hobbes's theory. Peace is possible when we create a process that resolves disputes according to widely intuitive principles of equality and reciprocity. This requires, however, that we refrain from imposing our particular interpretations of justice, and that we tolerate the possibility of unjust outcomes. Hobbes and Locke's reasoning shows us why international institutions are needed to serve as an impartial judge for the resolution of civil and international conflicts. They rebut persistent skepticism about the fitness of international institutions to promote peace and justice. Recent scholarship on ethno-political conflict confirms the wisdom of their analysis.
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