Foreword

Abstract

Institutions enforcing international criminal law are often mentioned in the same breath as ‘global justice’. For instance, the first Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has referred to the Rome Statute as a ‘global justice system’.1 Luis Moreno-Ocampo himself was awarded an ‘International Humanitarian Award for Advancing Global Justice’2 and has written pieces titled ‘The International Criminal Court: Seeking Global Justice’.3 A flyer that encourages people to apply for an internship position at the ICC reads: ‘Can your skills promote lasting, global justice?’4 According to the ICC website, ‘International Criminal Justice Day… commemorates the landmark steps that the international community is taking to reach the common goal of global justice’.5 At the ‘Groundbreaking Ceremony’ for the permanent premises of the ICC the Court’s President stated that the building ‘will stand as a permanent symbol of global justice’.6 On another occasion, he expressed his appreciation for a state party on the ground that it was one of the Court’s ‘strongest supporters in pursuing our common goal of global justice’.7 Senior international civil servants, too, have expressed their support for international criminal justice by associating it with global justice. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, for instance, has called the ICC ‘the keystone of a growing system of global justice’.8 States, too, have equated the ICC with ‘global justice’. The Ugandan government referred the ‘situation concerning the Lord’s Resistance Army’ to the ICC, stating that it turned ‘to the newly established International Criminal Court and its promise of global justice’.9 When the Seychelles ratified the Rome Statute, Mexico, as Vice-President of the Assembly of States Parties, said this demonstrated the archipelago’s ‘determination to achieve global justice’.10 News outlets, in turn, have reported that ‘the Obama administration is shifting U.S. policy on global justice by beginning to provide assistance to the ICC’.11 International criminal lawyers have written books with titles like Crimes against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice.12 And the blog of the Coalition for the International Criminal Court is called: ‘#GlobalJustice’.13