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6 - Competing, Complementing, Copying

Domestic Courts and Complementarity

from Part II - The ICC in Uganda, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 April 2020

Christian M. De Vos
Affiliation:
Physicians for Human Rights, New York
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Summary

This chapter examines the emergence of specialized domestic courts as a frequently cited outcome of ICC interventions. It highlights the shifting, adaptive nature of complementarity as the basis for reforming domestic judicial systems, even though the link between these efforts and the ICC itself is often tenuous. The chapter highlights how, in contexts like Uganda and Kenya, the threat of the ICC’s jurisdiction was used to prompt the setting up of domestic legal bodies and to buttress putative admissibility challenges. By contrast, recent descriptions depict these bodies more literally as extensions of the ICC: Rather than displacing the court, they are meant to complement and ‘complete’ its work. Non-state actors in the Democratic Republic of Congo have invoked complementarity in a similar manner, even though the domestic proceedings there through military courts are not materially connected to - nor the direct result of - the ICC’s undertakings. In tracing these shifts, the chapter considers complementarity’s duelling impulse towards conformity (specialized domestic courts often mimic the ICC) and competition (such courts are often in tension with the ‘ordinary’ justice system). I also suggest the concept of a ‘justice meme’ to understand how the perceived need for conformity with ICC practice is transmitted and replicated.

Type
Chapter
Information
Complementarity, Catalysts, Compliance
The International Criminal Court in Uganda, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo
, pp. 193 - 237
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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