The creation of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 1998 marked a substantial advance in the effort to ensure all perpetrators of mass atrocities can be brought to justice. Yet significant resistance to the anti-impunity norm, and the ICC as the implementing institution, has arisen in Africa. The ICC has primarily operated in Africa, and since it sought to indict the sitting Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir in 2008 resistance from both individual African states and the African Union has increased substantially. We draw on the concept of ‘norm antipreneurs’, and the broader norm dynamics literature, to analyse how resistance has developed and manifested itself, as well as the potential effects of this resistance on the anti-impunity norm. We conclude that the antipreneur concept helped us structure and organise analysis of the case – suggesting it could be usefully deployed in other similar cases – but that this case also suggests that antipreneurs do not always enjoy substantial defensive advantages. We also conclude that African resistance to the ICC has substantially stalled the advance of the anti-impunity norm, a finding that has significant implications for the wider effort to reduce mass atrocity crimes in the contemporary era.

No abstract

No abstract

The African Union has become increasingly hostile towards the International Criminal Court, particularly in the wake of the ICC arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, although the public hostility masks deeper divisions among African countries. Indeed, evidence of arguments among African states and between Africa and Western countries over the proper functioning and scope of the ICC is indicative of a number of paradoxes and conflicts which have emerged as Africa reorients its identities and interests to embrace international human rights norms while also asserting itself on the global stage.

Donald Trump's populist, nationalist "America First" agenda advocates a transactional, zero-sum, hypercompetitive, and sovereigntist view of US foreign policy, which many scholars and policymakers conclude poses a considerable challenge to multilateralism. We explore the threat America First presents to the international human rights regime as reflected in important institutions and norms. We survey America First policies regarding immigration and refugee norms as well as norms prohibiting torture and war crimes. We examine its position on the UN Human Rights Commission and the International Criminal Court, consider Trump's sympathies for autocratic governments, and explore the development of the Commission on Unalienable Rights. Finally, we explain why the America First norm transgressions pose a novel threat to the human rights regime, potentially more worrisome than prior US norm violations. America First's performative element risks reconstituting US identity as an outsider state, if not an outlaw, visa -vis the international community.