Alana Tiemessen, Ph.D.

alanatiemessen@gmail.com

Endicott College

Country: United States (Massachusetts)

Research Interests

Conflict Processes & War

Human Rights

International Law & Organization

Non-Democratic Regimes

Political Violence

International Criminal Court

Transitional Justice

Failed States

International Justice

Publications:

Journal Articles:

(2016) The International Criminal Court and the Lawfare of Judicial Intervention, International Relations

The contentious concept of ‘lawfare’ has proliferated to various foreign policy areas and permeated a discourse on the function and legitimacy of law in conflict. The concept seems particularly apt to the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) judicial interventions. In this context, I define lawfare as the coercive and strategic element of international criminal justice in which the ICC’s judicial interventions are used as a tool of lawfare for States Parties and the United Nations Security Council to pursue political ends. I argue that there are two types of political ends being pursued with this lawfare: conflict resolution and politicized prosecutions. First, the ICC’s spokespersons, advocates, and supporting states have cultivated a discourse that justice is a means to peace. As a result, the ICC has been used as a means of intervention in ongoing conflicts with the expectation that the indictments, arrests, and trials of elite perpetrators have deterrence and preventive effects for atrocity crimes. Despite these legitimate intentions and great expectations, there is little evidence of the efficacy of justice as a means to peace. Second, the other manifestation of lawfare represents an abuse or manipulation of the ICC for political gain. Specifically, States Parties have strategically referred their conflict situations to the ICC with the expectation that the referral will result in the removal of their rivals and sanction the impunity of ruling elites. This politicization of international justice has been successful in that most of the ICC’s prosecutions are unjustly one sided. Evidence of politicized prosecutions has damaged the ICC’s credibility as an impartial institution and raises questions about the desirability of state referrals. Consequently, the ICC’s efficacy and credibility are suffering from lawfare.

(2014) The International Criminal Court and the Politics of Prosecutions, The International Journal of Human Rights

I assess the credibility of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as an impartial and independent institution by demonstrating how state behaviour towards the Court has politicised prosecutions. There are two mechanisms by which prosecutions have become politicised: the referrals of conflict situations to the ICC by political actors, i.e. States Parties to the Rome Statute and United Nations Security Council, and the prospect and degree of state cooperation with the Court. Consequently prosecutions have targeted only one side of the conflict and reflect the strategic political interests of the referring actors but promise a greater degree of state cooperation. The case studies selected here present variation in the nature of referrals and degree of cooperation, making for an instructive comparison and revealing an identifiable pattern of politicisation.