On the Governance of International Judicial Institutions: The Development of Performance Indicators for the International Criminal Court

Abstract

This article reviews the recent effort of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute (ASP) to measure the performance of the International Criminal Court (ICC) through the identification of goals and performance indicators. Upon an analysis of the various performance indicators reports prepared by the ICC and pertinent scholarly contributions, it offers a critical review of the ASP’s endeavour. While appreciating the usefulness of the large amount of information collected by the ICC in the said reports, it argues that the turn to managerialism brought about by the ASP’s endeavour, while laudable in many respects, may constitute an encroachment on the exercise of the judicial function if not properly handled through a closer coordination with the goals set in the ICC Statute. It may, in fact, amount to ‘micromanagement’ with the consequence of diverting the ASP’s attention from the more pressing task of developing—20 years after the signing of the Rome Statute—an innovative vision of the ICC’s role for the next (20) years.