Protect and punish: norm linkage and international responses to mass atrocities

Abstract

Since being founded in 2002, the International Criminal Court has frequently intervened in ongoing conflicts and alongside other forms of coercive intervention, specifically sanctions and military measures. In this article, I argue that this pattern has been enabled by governments engaging in strategic norm linkage. To justify their positions on both judicial and non-judicial interventions, governments have discursively linked international prosecutions to the protection of civilians – in specific ways that have favoured joint judicial and non-judicial crisis responses. My argument, which I test through qualitative and quantitative content analyses of UN Security Council debates, contributes not only to debates on the politics of international criminal justice, but also to general theory-building on international norm dynamics. Adding to recent research on norm complexity and norm interactions, my study underlines and disaggregates the potential for discursive agency at the intersection of multiple international norms.