Abolishing the International Criminal Court

Abstract

The International Criminal Court (ICC) was formed through, and remains situated within, oppressive structures. Accordingly, critical legal scholars have questioned the Court’s ability to foster meaningful, inclusive justice. In this article, I argue that the ICC must be abolished. The ICC is carceral, relying on imprisonment, oppression and violence to achieve justice. Through this carcerality, the justice that the ICC produces can only ever be harmful rather than transformative. To show the necessity of abolishing this carceral institution, I present abolitionist critiques of the ICC, and its carceral logics, before offering the tools of abolition that we can draw on to dismantle this institution. These critiques surround the ICC’s racialisation, dehistoricisation and reliance on incarceration. In response to this, I outline abolitionist processes of refusal, relationality, decentring, delegitimising and dismantling. Abolition is concerned with anti-oppressive modes of existence. Through this anti-oppressive orientation, abolition provides critical considerations for the future of ‘international’ justice.