Tensions between the pursuit of criminal accountability and other international policy agendas in situations of armed conflict

Abstract

Focusing on one particular manifestation of the individualization of war, Sarah Nouwen illustrates how the pursuit of individual criminal accountability can create tensions with at least nine other policy agendas: the promotion of peace; humanitarian relief; humanitarian law promotion; military action to end atrocities; peacekeeping; economic cooperation; human rights promotion; rule-of-law promotion and democratization. In so doing, she also evaluates the strengths and limitations of the editors’ theoretical framework for conceptualizing both the kinds of tensions that the individualization of war can create (normative; practical-inherent; practical-contingent) and the strategies of resolution that have been adopted by scholars and practitioners. Whereas most of the tensions arising from individualization do not exist at the normative level—the objectives are not conflicting—and the difference between inherent and contingent is hard to draw, one key source of tensions is the diverging log ics of policy agendas: what is deemed necessary to pursue those objectives. With respect to the ‘resolution’ of the tensions, Nouwen argues that some tensions are inherent in the concept of individualization, while others are intentionally created and therefore not meant to be resolved. Finally, the chapter points out that some of the purported strategies for resolution in fact do not ‘resolve’ tensions but prioritize one policy agenda over another. Whether through legal or more ad hoc strategies, these prioritizations are ultimately determined by political choice.