Jacqueline McAllister, Ph.D.
Mcallisterj@kenyon.edu
Associate Professor
Kenyon College
Year of PhD: 2014
Country: United States (Ohio)
About Me:
Jacqueline R. McAllister is an associate professor of political science at Kenyon College. McAllister’s scholarship focuses on the origins, evolution and impact of international criminal tribunals, international criminal law, and investigative mechanisms. Her research has taken her all over the world, from the Balkans to Nigeria. During the 2023-24 academic year, McAllister completed a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship for Tenured International Relations Scholars, which embedded her in the United States’ Department of State’s Office of Global Criminal Justice (GCJ). She continues to serve as a senior advisor to GCJ. McAllister’s work has appeared in leading scholarly journals and foreign policy magazines, as well as received support from the Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, National Science Foundation, the American Association of University Women, and the American Council of Learned Societies. McAllister has also had the opportunity to work at leading international research centers focused on international courts: the Danish National Research Foundation’s Centre of Excellence for International Courts (iCourts) and the Center for the Study of the Legitimate Roles of the Judiciary in the Global Order (PluriCourts).McAllister is the youngest recipient of Kenyon’s Trustee Teaching Excellence Award. She teaches courses on international relations, transitional justice, human rights, international criminal law, international organizations and civil wars.
Research Interests
Human Rights
International Law & Organization
Conflict Processes & War
Foreign Policy
Political Violence
War Crimes
International Courts
International Criminal Court
Civil War
Countries of Interest
Bosnia-Herzegovina
Croatia
Serbia
Kosovo
Macedonia
Publications:
Journal Articles:
Twenty years after the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC or Court) entered into force, the ICC’s role in preventing atrocity crimes remains controversial, with skeptics arguing that it is unrealistic, pessimists that it overlooks the potential of the Court to escalate conflicts, and optimists contending that it can work for both government and rebel leaders. I argue that during civil wars the ICC is only likely to deter rebel forces, given that Court officials are likely to have an easier time pursuing their leaders should they commit atrocity crimes. This article systematically evaluates these competing claims by providing the most extended look yet at the ICC’s record in African civil wars, the primary focus of the Court’s efforts to date. I find that existing perspectives do not tell the full story of the ICC’s impact in war zones. The results suggest that the ICC has failed to deter African government forces. However, I uncover highly suggestive evidence that the more actions the ICC takes to pursue suspected war criminals during ongoing conflicts, the more likely it is to deter rebels. Notably, most of these ICC actions have targeted rebels. Importantly, I find no indication that the ICC is associated with increased civilian killings by either government or rebel forces. With the permanent ICC, the shadow of criminal prosecution now extends to modern-day conflicts. This study helps to broaden our understanding of how and when the ICC might contribute to deterrence.
On July 17, 2023, the International Criminal Court (ICC) will mark the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the Rome Statute, its founding treaty. The Statute constituted a remarkable transfer of authority from sovereign states to an international institution: The ICC is the first permanent court charged with prosecuting individuals, including senior political and military leaders, for atrocity crimes. Per the Statute, the ICC was designed with the goals of ending impunity for these crimes, contributing to their prevention, and delivering justice to victims. To what extent has the ICC achieved these and other goals in the Rome Statute? The ICC’s upcoming anniversary provides an opportune moment to examine this question and take stock of the Court’s performance. This special issue of the Journal of Human Rights addresses this question from an empirical perspective, focusing on two themes: (1) the ICC’s relations with states, which critically condition its operations and impact, (2) the Court’s effectiveness in achieving the goals outlined in the Rome Statute, specifically ending impunity and mitigating violence.
Advocates of wartime international criminal tribunals (ICTs) hope that such tribunals can deter combatant atrocities against civilians. Yet, more than twenty-five years after the establishment of the first wartime ICT—the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)—wartime ICTs’ role in deterring such violence remains a matter of debate. Insights from criminology, as well as research on civil conflicts and international legal compliance, suggest that ICTs are most likely to deter government and rebel forces from committing atrocities against civilians when all three of the following conditions are present: (1) ICT officials have secured sufficient prosecutorial support, (2) combatant groups rely on support from liberal constituencies, and (3) combatant groups have centralized structures. Case studies of the ICTY's impact on fourteen combatant groups from the Yugoslav conflicts—combined with hundreds of field interviews with war veterans and others—confirm this prediction. The ICTY's record thus sheds important light on how and when contemporary wartime ICTs—including the International Criminal Court—might succeed in deterring combatant atrocities against civilians.
https://bjwa.brown.edu/26-1/the-extraordinary-gamble-how-the-yugoslav-tribunals-indictment-of-slobodan-milosevic-during-the-kosovo-war-affected-peace-efforts/
The ECOWAS Community Court of Justice (ECCJ) is an increasingly active and bold international adjudicator of human rights violations in West Africa. Since acquiring jurisdiction over human rights issues in 2005, the ECCJ has issued several path-breaking judgments, including against the Gambia for the torture of journalists, against Niger for condoning modern forms of slavery, and against Nigeria for failing to regulate the multinational oil companies that polluted the Niger Delta. This article explains why ECOWAS member states authorized the ECCJ to review human rights suits by individuals but did not allow private actors to complain about violations of regional economic rules. In addition to explaining the ECCJ’s striking transformation, the article makes several other contributions. It illustrates how an existing international institution can be redeployed for new purposes; it highlights the contributions of civil society, supranational officials, and ECOWAS judges to expanding the Court’s mandate; it analyzes the ECCJ’s distinctive jurisdiction and access rules; and it shows how the ECCJ has survived challenges to its authority. Our analysis is based on original field research in Nigeria, including more than two-dozen interviews with judges, government officials, attorneys, and NGOs. We also draw upon the first-ever coding of all ECCJ decisions through 2010. The ECCJ’s transformation is also theoretically significant. The article’s final section and conclusion reassesses theories of regional integration, institutional change, and transnational legal mobilization in light of the ECCJ’s experience to demonstrate the implications of our findings for international institutions beyond West Africa.
Book Chapters:
International officials have repeatedly charged that international criminal tribunals (ICTs) undermine peace processes. Advocates of ICTs, however, have maintained that there can be no peace without justice. Ultimately, there is still much to learn about wartime ICTs’ actual impact on peace processes. This chapter addresses how the ICTY affected efforts to end the Bosnian War. Drawing on over 100 interviews with key stakeholders from the Bosnian peace process, along with recently declassified data from the Clinton administration, the chapter finds that ICTY played a key role in facilitating peace efforts. Among other things, the ICTY’s indictments strengthened mediators’ hand in implementing crucial participation decisions. Moreover, the ICTY helped parties to overcome commitment problems. The analysis suggests that the ICTY’s cautious approach to indicting top leaders during peace talks, coupled with the fact that lead mediators effectively exercised discretion over the arrest and transfer of suspects, both capture why the ICTY facilitated, versus undermined peace efforts
Book Reviews:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/jonas-bens-the-sentimental-court-the-affective-life-of-international-criminal-justice-cambridge-cambridge-university-press-2022-233-pp-maps-notes-bibliography-index-9999-paper-isbn-9781316512876/7400A9A48917B23758E48893BC9CDD36
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Other:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2022/04/15/war-crimes-icc-us/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/10/06/south-sudan-promised-investigate-civil-war-atrocities-why-hasnt-that-happened/
This article explores the challenges that the International Criminal Court faces in apprehending war crimes suspects.
Media Appearances:
Newspaper Quotes:
War crimes and international justice: what hope for Ukraine?
Other:
Episode 6: “Deterring Wartime Atrocities and the Yugoslav Tribunal.”
Do International Criminal Tribunals Actually Deter War Crimes?