The International Criminal Court‘s intervention into the ongoing civil war in northern Uganda evoked a chorus of confident predictions as to its capacity to bring peace and justice to the war-torn region. This optimism is unwarranted, however. The article analyzes the consequences for peace and justice of the ICC's intervention, dividing them into two categories: those resulting from the political instrumentalization of the ICC by the Ugandan government, and those resulting from the discourse and practice of the ICC as an institution of global law enforcement.

As to the first, the article argues that the Ugandan government referred the conflict to the ICC in order to obtain international support for its militarization and to entrench, not resolve, the war; the ICC, in accepting the referral and prosecuting only the Lord‘s Resistance Army, has in effect chosen to pursue a politically pragmatic case even though doing so contravenes the interests of peace, justice, and the rule of law. As to the second, the article reveals the harmful effects that ICC intervention can have on the capacity for autonomous political organization and action among civilian victims of violence, specifically how it leads to depoliticization by promoting a political dependency mediated by international law. The article draws from this analysis disturbing implications about ICC interventions generally, and concludes by asking whether ICC practice may be reformed so as to avoid these negative consequences.

This paper is a response to Jeff McMahan‘s “Just Cause for War” (Ethics & International Affairs 19, 2005). McMahan holds, as many have, that there is a just cause for war against group X only if X have made themselves liable to military force by being responsible for some serious wrong. But he interprets this liability requirement in a very strict way. He insists (1) that one may use force against X for purpose Y only if they are responsible for a wrong specifically connected to Y; and (2) that one may use force against an individual member of X only if he himself shares in the responsibility for the wrong. This paper defends a more permissive, and more traditional, view of just war liability against McMahan's claims. Against McMahan‘s first claim it argues that certain “conditional just causes,” such as disarming an aggressor, deterring future aggression, and preventing lesser humanitarian crimes, can be legitimate goals of war against X even if X have no specific liability connected to them. Against McMahan's second claim it argues that soldiers who have no responsibility for X‘s wrong may nonetheless be legitimately attacked because in becoming soldiers they freely surrendered their right not to be killed by enemy combatants in a war between their and another state, so killing them in such a war is not unjust. Though initially a criticism of McMahan, the paper makes positive proposals about conditional just causes and the moral justification for directing force at soldiers.

Despite some limited moves toward openness and accountability, suprastate policy formation in such bodies as the World Trade Organization remains fundamentally exclusive of individuals within states. This article critiques the “don't kill the goose” arguments commonly offered in defense of such exclusions. It highlights similarities between those arguments and past arguments for elitist forms of democracy, where strict limitations are advocated on the participation of nonelites in the name of allowing leaders to act most effectively in the broad public interest. Advocated here is movement toward a strongly empowered WTO parliamentary body that would be guided in practice by a principle of democratic symmetry, attempting to match input to the increasing impacts of WTO governance. A parliament with codecision powers broadly similar to those of the European Parliament is offered as a long-term institutional ideal.

Should states be held responsible and punished for violations of international law? The recent ruling by the International Court of Justice that Serbia cannot be held responsible for genocide in Bosnia reflects the predominant international legal position. But such a position leaves open the possibility that states or nonstate agents can never be held responsible for international crimes. This article argues that they can and should be. While most international ethicists and legal theorists reject the punishment of corporate entities such as states, this article argues that certain types of international violations can only be undertaken by states, and, as a result, states must bear the responsibility for them. Drawing on some neglected strands in international law and political theory, the article sketches a potential institutional framework for the punishment of state crimes, particularly genocide and aggression.