RT Article
T1 International insurance?: Democratic consolidation and support for international human rights regimes
JF International journal of transitional justice
VO 8
IS 3
SP 452
OP 475
A1 Zschirnt, Simon 1979-
A2 Menaldo, Mark A. 1979-
LA English
YR 2014
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1843433281
AB Judicial empowerment has traditionally been explained as a response to political uncertainty. This article applies this insight to the international context to explain patterns of support for the empowerment of supranational courts. Our analysis of the negotiations that produced the International Criminal Court suggests that the relationship between democratic consolidation and support for empowering such courts is curvilinear. States with no recent experience with the type of autocratic regime particularly likely to commit serious human rights violations generally favored a somewhat weaker Court. In this respect their positions sometimes aligned with those of autocracies. Conversely, states that had recently emerged from the shadow of autocratic rule, for whom the sovereignty costs associated with the Court were countervailed by the benefit of insurance against backsliding toward autocracy, generally favored a stronger Court. Thus, just as uncertainty drives judicial empowerment in domestic contexts, it also drives judicial empowerment in the international context.
K1 Democratic consolidation
K1 International human rights regime
K1 Judicial empowerment
K1 International Criminal Court
K1 Political insurance
DO 10.1093/ijtj/iju018