There are interviews with Kathryn Sikkink on the “justice cascade,” Leslie Vinjamuri on the role of the ICC in conflict zones, and Louise Arbour on the general debate. There are also essays on individual case studies that collectively demonstrate how peace and justice can be mutually reinforcing or come to blows when politics inevitably gets in the way. Check out essays by Mark Kersten on Libya, Stephen Brown on Kenya, Valerie Oosterveld on the Taylor trial, Rosalind Raddatz on the infamous General Butt Naked, and Simon Collard-Wexler on Timor Leste.  (More to come on Sudan, Kony 2012 and Canada’s truth commission.)

My own modest contribution is on “The Paradox of Lawfare.” Here’s a snippet:

The International Criminal Court precariously sits at the intersection of law, conflict, and politics. As such, the Court’s judicial intervention in ongoing conflicts and targeting of elite perpetrators of atrocities render it both an agent and a tool of what has been called “lawfare.” On the one hand, lawfare can refer to judicial interventions to curb atrocities through means that are coercive but morally preferable to military force. This form of lawfare is an ideal expression of liberal internationalism. On the other hand, the Court and global rule of law can be abused by states and political elites that seek to eliminate rivals and protect their own impunity. This is the paradox of the ICC – that it has so far been implicated in both legitimate and illegitimate uses of lawfare…