Imagining the International
| Date | 01 April 2016 |
| Author | Nesam McMillan |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663915593626 |
| Published date | 01 April 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Imagining the International:
The Constitution of the
International As a Site of
Crime, Justice and
Community
Nesam McMillan
University of Melbourne, Australia
Abstract
This article highlights and interrogates the significance of dominant representations of
international crime and international criminal justice. It positions international criminal
justice as a discursive, as well as practical, global project and is concerned, in particular,
with the relational and ethical implications of the way in which international crime and
justice are thought about, spoken about and portrayed. I argue that dominant repre-
sentations of international crime and international criminal justice serve to map the
international as a site of crime, justice and community. A key contribution of this article
is to explicate the uniquely ‘crimino-legal’ nature of this site or sphere, by illustrating its
criminological, legal and spatial characteristics. I then reflect on the ethical and relational
limits of this arena of sociolegal engagement, as well as emphasising the importance of
continued academic attention to the representation and imagination, as well as practice,
of international criminal justice.
Keywords
Ethics, international crime, international criminal justice, representation
Corresponding author:
Nesam McMillan, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria 3010,
Australia.
Email: nesamcm@unimelb.edu.au
Social & Legal Studies
2016, Vol. 25(2) 163–180
ªThe Author(s) 2015
Reprints and permission:
sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav
DOI: 10.1177/0964663915593626
sls.sagepub.com
‘The wrongs which we seek to condemn and punish have been so calculated, so malignant,
and so devastating, that civilization cannot tolerate their being ignored, because it cannot
survive their being repeated’
(Jackson in his opening statement for the Prosecution at the Nuremberg Tribunal, 1947: 98)
‘Once again the case we present is a plea of humanity to law ... Let the voice and the ver-
dict of this esteemed global court now speak for the awakened conscience of the world’
(Ferencz in the Prosecutor’s closing statement at the first trial of the International Criminal
Court, 2011: 50, 52–53)
From its inception, international criminal justice has been a representational project as
much as a practical endeavour. The establishment of a field of international criminal jus-
tice has entailed not only the development of international criminal laws and tribunals
but also the imagination of distinctly ‘international’ forms of crime and justice and an
international constituency united – in part – through its opposition to extreme suffering.
Within this discursive schema, certain crimes are conceptualised as crimes against ‘civi-
lization’, crimes against humanity, crimes against ‘us’ all, whilst international criminal
laws and legal processes are positioned as best able to represent and respond to the inter-
ests of humanity, to ‘speak for the awakened conscience of the world’. In this way,
notions of international crime and international justice are placed in a distinctive rela-
tional, as well as jurisdictional, context to their domestic counterparts, affecting and
implicating humanity as a whole.
This article critically reflects on the nature and effects of such dominant representa-
tions and images of international criminal justice. I am interested in tracing their content
and teasing out their productive effects – what subjectivities and communities they bring
into being, what ways they make it possible to conceptualise, respond and relate to suf-
fering and injustice in the world? These discourses and representations of international
criminal justice are significant, as they do not simply reflect the consolidation or exis-
tence of an already existing global community or common humanity with established
norms and values. Rather, it is in and through representations and discourses of interna-
tional criminal justice that such global subjectivities and modes of global responsibility
and interconnection are productively imagined.
In particular, I argue that dominant representations of international crime and inter-
national criminal justice are significant as they serve to map the international as a site
of crime, justice and community. Through the way in which international crime and jus-
tice are thought about, spoken about and portrayed, the international is demarcated as a
new social, legal and geographical arena in which there exists a concept of crime, a
social and legal order that it contravenes and a community that is implicated in its occur-
rence and responsible for its redress. In addition to tracing the constitution of this sphere
through the ideas and images of international criminal justice, a key contribution of this
article is to explicate its uniquely ‘crimino-legal’ nature,
1
by emphasising its criminolo-
gical, legal and spatial characteristics. To do so, I draw on the work of sociolegal, crim-
inology and cultural geography scholars to illustrate how the international (as it is
produced through ideas and practices of international criminal justice) is a site of global
164 Social & Legal Studies 25(2)
To continue reading
Request your trial