Dothan: Staging an Intervention for Rogue States

Shai Dothan (Univ. of Copenhagen - Law) has posted Staging an Intervention for Rogue States. Here's the abstract:

In recent years, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is beginning to play a larger role in world politics. The court has interpreted the erga omnes partes doctrine as giving every state that is a member of some treaties creating ICJ jurisdiction the right to start a case against any other member of that treaty. When the treaty deals with salient political issues, like the Genocide Convention, other states often join the process by intervening in the proceedings. The idea that states should act as guardians of humanity isn't new. It was tried before in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and failed. States either chose not to bring cases because they feared the political backlash involved or they used their standing for political paybacks. This paper argues that the attempts to position states as guardians of humanity and use the collective pressure of the international community to guide rogue states into compliance with international law are unlikely to succeed. Insights from the social sciences suggest that a small community composed of complex actors with a variety of interests, some of which are clandestine, can easily spread falsehoods among its members. The community of states is such a network. In light of this, one can expect that the community of states participating in politically salient ICJ cases will not be guided by the truth.