Chapter 2 sets out the theoretical framework for the book. It suggests that there are four main drivers of backlash politics. The first is the tribunals’ abiding dependence on states. No matter how independent international courts are on paper, they still rely on state cooperation to hear cases, hold perpetrators to account, and garner compliance. Moreover, the tribunals depend on states for their operating budgets, staff, and normative legitimacy. The second driving factor of backlash is normative discontent. High rates of ratification mask underlying and significant normative divides about which human rights and accountability norms matter and why. The chapter then goes on to consider two additional drivers of backlash politics: the domestic consequences of international adjudication and the likelihood of future repression. The chapter concludes with an overview of the courts examined throughout the book and a discussion of Saving the International Justice Regime’s empirical approach.

Chapter 4 focuses on the second manifestation of backlash politics: the creation of alternate or substitute justice mechanisms. This chapter considers how the tribunals’ dependency on member states, normative discontent, the domestic implications of international human rights and criminal adjudication, and the likelihood of future repression prompted a set of African Union (AU) member states to try to orchestrate a mass walkout of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the establishment of a new, tri-chamber AU court that would supplant – but not fully replace – the ICC’s jurisdiction. The chapter then pivots to Latin America and examines a similar effort led by Venezuela to create a UNASUR human rights court that would supplant the Inter-American Human Rights System.

Cosmpolitanism and sovereigntism are two views of international law, with competing perspectives on the appropriateness of external intervention to protect democracy. Contrasting developments in the Gambia with those in neighboring Equatorial Guinea, this chapter defines terms, lays out what is at stake, and counsels against simplistic views that democratization is inevitable or even advisable in all places.

Much of the future of the international order will depend on the interactions of China and the United States, the world's most important autocracy and democracy. Each of these countries has very different conceptions of international order and the place of law within it. Yet despite their very different approaches, both China and the United States share similar attitudes to international law. Both are essentially hegemonic in their approach, and this provides a space for the continuing presence of prodemocratic international law among smaller countries.

The growing use of drones is discussed in detail in this chapter. The chapter shows that their intensive use by both state and non-state actors is largely due to the fact that they provide a significant enhancement in aerial awareness at a relatively low cost and low risk. In the Middle East and North Africa, armed drones have been deployed in the Gaza Strip, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Yemen, and other theaters. The roots of Iran’s drone program go back to the 1980–8 war with Iraq. Since the early 1980s, Iran has developed strong and diversified drone capabilities. Its arsenal today includes a broad and sophisticated range of non-weaponized surveillance and armed drones.

Chapter 3 lays out the methods and the logic of case selection that underpin the book. This book is a theory-building and theory-probing undertaking—I build a theory of how the alternative benefits of bargaining lead combatants to seek out UN peacekeeper while probing how the credible commitment theory of war termination drives the desire for peace operations—and process tracing using a most-similar cases approach is one way to do this.In this chapter, I outline first the method by which I selected cases, building a catalogue of the UN’s peacekeeping successes and failures, and a timeline of what peacekeeping successes and failures combatants would have seen around the world as they were negotiating, in order to do so, and then discuss the evidence and tools I use to process-trace the Rwandan and Guatemalan peace processes. Readers who are interested primarily in the substance of the text and not in methodological discussion, or a discussion of multiple archives, can proceed to the subsequent three chapters without reading Chapter 3.

The conclusion examines my argument’s implications for both scholarship and policy. For scholars, the evidence I offer here challenges the strict geographic and chronological separation between time periods and peacekeeping missions that some studies take as given. For policymakers, the arguments and evidence I advance contribute to ongoing debates about the future of peace operations.Peacekeeping today is turning increasingly towards a more military posture—but key among my argument’s implications is the idea that if the reconstruction, investment, and refugee resettlement services the international community can provide are more important than security protection to some combatants, then tying negotiation, peacekeeping, and intervention more tightly to the UN’s aid and humanitarian agencies may represent another, better direction for the UN.