Book Review: Yvonne Dutton, Rules, Politics, and the International Criminal Court: Committing to the Court
| Author | Eric K Leonard |
| Published date | 01 August 2016 |
| Date | 01 August 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1478929916653042 |
| Subject Matter | Book ReviewsInternational Relations |
Political Studies Review 14 (3)
new generation of technological and transna-
Criminal Court in her book Rules, Politics and
tional commons. In essence, the eight case
the International Criminal Court. Ultimately,
studies show an underlying tension throughout
Dutton is attempting to discover why states join
history between efforts to valorise resources
the ICC. This is a very interesting question,
and the requirement to protect humans and
given the variety among the 124 member states.
nature in the governance of what the authors
The list of member states includes a lot of
call ‘cosmopolitan commons’. The first three
Western democratic states with excellent human
case studies explore the foundations of three
rights records, such as Britain, Canada, France,
regimes in the twentieth century which are all
Germany and Norway, along with states whose
aimed at maximising the collective exploita-
human rights record is less than stellar, includ-
tion of cosmopolitan commons: European
ing Afghanistan, Congo and Kenya. The ques-
commercial air travel (Kranakis), European
tion becomes even more interesting when one
radio broadcasting (Wormbs) and Vuoksi
considers who is not party to the Rome Statute,
hydropower (Korjonen-Kuusipuro). The three
most notably the United States. Dutton attempts
next case studies are more interested in the
to address this crucial question through a variety
preservation of nature and humans; they focus
of statistical and to some degree qualitative
on weather forecasting (Edwards), crop measures, but relies most heavily on the credible
genetic diversity (Saraiva) and transbound-
threat theory to explain state behaviour regard-
ary air pollution (Kaijser). The two last cap-
ing the ICC.
stone studies analyse temporal layering and
According to Dutton, credible threat theory
clashes among different commons within two
‘predicts that “bad” states will generally refuse
specific resource-spaces – the North...
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