JOURNAL ARTICLE
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Towards Afrotopia: The AU Withdrawal Strategy Document, the ICC, and the Possibility of Pluralistic Utopias
German Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 60 (2018), Iss. 1 : pp. 481–513
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Dorothy Makaza, DAAD Scholar and PhD Candidate at the University of Hamburg.
Abstract
The International Criminal Court could be said to represent the largest utopian project in international criminal justice. Although African States were among the first to ratify the Rome Statute, the African Union Assembly’s adoption of a Withdrawal Strategy Document in January 2017 could have been an indication of a tipping point in the relationship between African States and the International Criminal Court. This article aims to show the irony of utopia amidst the global North/South divide by putting into question the feasibility, legitimacy, and equitability of the utopian project in international criminal law as well as to discuss the proposals within the Withdrawal Strategy Document while shedding light upon the varying contextual backgrounds on which those proposals were made. It challenges international criminal law conceptions of State (non-)compliance and explores the complexities of such classifications by revealing the politics of definition in international criminal law. Finally, the article suggests pluralising the field as a solution and introduces the concept of Afrotopia as part of the puzzle of pluralised utopias.
Table of Contents
| Section Title | Page | Action | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dorothy Makaza: Towards Afrotopia: The AU Withdrawal Strategy Document, the ICC, and the Possibility of Pluralistic Utopias | 1 | ||
| I. The Case Against Utopianism and Universalism in ICL | 3 | ||
| A. Questioning the Legitimacy of Universalism in ICL | 4 | ||
| B. Interpretation and Its Influence on Categories of Compliance and Non-Compliance | 8 | ||
| II. The African Union Withdrawal Strategy Document (WSD) | 1 | ||
| A. Concrete Proposals in the WSD | 1 | ||
| 1. ICC-Related Reforms and Rome Statute Amendments | 1 | ||
| 2. UNSC-Related Reforms | 1 | ||
| 3. African State Party-Targeted Reforms | 2 | ||
| B. Brief Commentary on the Feasibility of the WSD | 2 | ||
| C. Withdrawals and State Compliance | 2 | ||
| D. Weighing the Feasibility of a Singular Utopiain ICL in the Midst of the WSD Proposals | 2 | ||
| III. Possible Solutions | 2 | ||
| A. Pluralistic Utopias | 2 | ||
| B. Afrotopia | 2 | ||
| IV. Concluding Remarks | 3 |