The Professional Market of International Criminal Justice: Divisions of Labour and Patterns of Elite Reproduction

Abstract

This article analyzes the division of labor that characterizes international criminal justice as a market of services. Using a sociological framework and building on empirical data on 996 professional agents, the analysis outlines how the market around the international criminal courts is structured by three different social groups that dominate the formal roles of judges, prosecutors and defense counsel. The article analyzes the relative positionality of these groups highlighting the low degree of mobility between them and the continued dominance of global north professionals in certain groups. On the basis of these findings, the article investigates the distinct patterns of expertise of the three groups and how it links them to the wider market of international criminal justice. The relations between the three social groups structure the market of international criminal justice and formats the social fault lines of its normative debates.