Sociopolitical Influence and the Impact of Deterrence: An Examination of the ICC's Effectiveness in Preventing Global Human Rights Abuses

Abstract

Imagine a world where perpetrators of repeated human rights abuses can escape justice and even sabotage the efforts of those who seek to hold them accountable. This is the reality that the International Criminal Court (ICC) faces in its mission to deter and prosecute international crimes. In this paper, I will argue that the ICC is largely ineffective in deterring human rights abuses by leaders abroad, based on descriptive qualitative studies of several cases involving Russia, Afghanistan, Libya, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sudan, and Kenya, where political influence, among other related factors, undermined the court’s authority and legitimacy. My research question is as follows: How effective is the ICC in deterring international human rights abuses by leaders? I hypothesize that the ICC is mostly ineffective in deterring human rights abuses abroad, especially by political leaders, albeit with a few notable exceptions. Utilizing information from primary sources, such as the press comments of relevant politicians and firsthand news articles detailing the events, and secondary sources, such as court documents and journal articles, This paper argues that the ICC is not only circumvented, but frequently undermined by political influence. Renown executives, such as the George Bush administration in the U.S. or William Ruto in Kenya, were able to directly interfere with investigation efforts by witness tampering or manipulating legal loopholes. In these cases, innate vulnerabilities were exposed, showing the ICC can be rendered powerless against human rights abuses. A historical and theoretical study on these cases and the implication of their respective ICC interactions will be the leading basis of my paper.