Not in our name! Visions of community in international criminal justice

This chapter explores how international criminal justice conceives of the relevant ‘communities’ as the authors and owners of criminal justice that is administered by international criminal courts. To do so, it contrasts the traits of relevant communities on the national and international levels. While there is only one relevant community on the national level – the domestic community – that oversees punishment, there are in fact two relevant communities at the international level – the ‘domestic’ community from which the perpetrators prosecuted before the international tribunals come, and the international community in whose name the perpetrators are punished before the international tribunals. This duality of communities at the supranational level creates tensions, because while the international community can be considered as both the creator and recipient of international justice, the ‘domestic’ community is merely its addressee, but hardly plays any other role. Thus, even if crimes over which international criminal courts have jurisdiction are universally condoned, the way in which international justice operates alienates and excludes the domestic community, while punishment at the international level does little to strengthen the domestic moral order. The chapter argues that it is this problem – more than issues of geographical distance or the lack of outreach – which accounts for why international trials fail to achieve beneficial effects and offers some insights into whether this problem could be resolved.