Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: A series of mass atrocities since the early 1990s has escalated demands for the creation of supranational courts and tribunals, and thus highlighted the tremendous variation in national support for such institutions. The paper analyzes the conditions under which states agree to transfer sovereignty over criminal justice to supranational authorities. It treats states? policies toward the International Criminal Court as a proxy for their general attitude in this regard. As we demonstrate in the paper, standard Realist and Liberal theories of international relations cannot explain the pattern of support/non-support that we observe among the world?s 193 states. Instead, we develop a Constructivist theory of interest formation which argues that interactions with regional human rights courts (European or inter-American) transform political attitudes and judicial procedures in the states that join them. In turn, this "institutional learning" makes such states more likely to accept or support supranational authority in criminal matters. (Human rights courts focus on the actions and legal duties of states, while criminal courts focus on the actions and duties of individuals.) The analysis uses both qualitative and quantitative methods and a database on national involvement in regional human rights courts and national policies toward the International Criminal Court that we constructed.