Influences on the International Criminal Court's Investigation and Prosecution Decisions Open Access

Abstract

The International Criminal Court (ICC) is the world's principal legal forum for holding individuals criminally accountable for war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity, and crimes of aggression. Yet decisions by the ICC (about who to prosecute), like those of all international organizations, are theoretically subject to a variety of political influences and organizational biases. Critics and scholars have identified a number of factors that might influence the court, from the ICC’s caseload, to the amount of NGO pressure put on a suspect, to the severity of crimes committed, to the potential deference to or reduced access to evidence about government actors, to the effect of pressure from powerful states. I assess the merits of these hypotheses using an original dataset of 568 individuals leading groups perpetrating one-sided violence, or killings of civilians, from 2002 through 2022. I find that the court is more likely to prosecute someone if that person is subject to NGO pressure or UNSC sanctions and if their crimes are more severe. However, the biggest impact of how severe a person’s crimes are is right when they occur and the impact decreases as more time passes from then. I also find that the ICC is virtually guaranteed to defer to, and not act against, a person subject to any alternative or domestic prosecution. Yet, the ICC is not less likely to prosecute government actors, as the previous research has stated, but, perhaps, due to lesser availability of evidence or other deference, it is less likely to act against top leaders of groups than lower-ranked members. Moreover, my findings suggest that the ICC is not responsive to independent pressure from the US government.  

Table of Contents

Introduction………………………………………………………………..1

Background Information on the ICC………………………………………………………………….4

Literature Review…………………………………………………………..9

Theoretical Arguments and Hypotheses…………………………………………………………..17

Research Design…………………………………………………………..23

Results…………………………………………………………..30

Robustness and Sensitivity Analyses …………………………………………………………..36

Discussion…………………………………………………………..38

Works Cited…………………………………………………………..46

Appendix……………………………………………………………..52

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Political Science
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Political Science, International Law and Relations
Keyword	Bias International Criminal Court Influences Investigations Case Selection Prosecutions
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Eric Reinhardt, Emory University
Committee Members	Danielle Jung, Emory University David Davis, Emory University

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