Distance in the International Criminal Court's Relations with the 'Local'

Abstract

The literature on the International Criminal Court's (ICC) relations with the local broadly falls under the rubric of either acceptance of or resistance to the Court. This article provides contrasting insights on the binaries in equal measure, revealing complex and dynamic processes of continuous negotiations of the parameters of the Court's reach among the local. The article introduces the state of flux as a spatio-temporal account of how local actors order 'distance' in their relations with the ICC by invoking metaphorical kinship in ways that enable their oscillations between approval and hostility to the Court over time and space. In so doing, the article builds on the agency of a section of Kenya's political elite, who have demonstrated the most dramatic trends of the state of flux since the Court's establishment. The state of flux calls for the ICC's continuous engagement with the local as a mitigation for its distancing.