The International Criminal Court and the BRICS States: Solidarist Progress and Pluralist Limits in a Changing International Society

The focus of this thesis is the relationship between the BRICS states (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). More specifically, it examines the nature of the BRICS states’ support for and contestation of the Court, including their views on the Rome Statute legal regime and the Court’s practice of international criminal justice, and the impact their actions have on the Court. It does so using an English School theoretical framework. In addition, this focused analysis is used to draw broader conclusions about the contribution of non¬ Western states to global order building and, more particularly, to establish whether the shift in the balance of power from the West to the Global South and East, represented by the evolution of the BRICS as a political group, poses a challenge to the sustainability of liberal international society and its cosmopolitan evolutionary trajectory as represented by the ICC.

It is argued that the BRICS states support the institution of international criminal justice and the ICC but only to the extent that it is operationalised and the Court discharges its mandate consistent with a state-solidarist conception of international society, paying sufficient deference to pluralist primary institutions including a substantially absolutist conception of sovereignty, diplomacy and multilateralism, and a classical interpretation of international law. They also defend the overriding pluralist value of order in international society. This approach manifests in a backlash against the Court’ s pursuit of retributive justice which the BRICS states’ assert hinders the negotiated settlement of ongoing conflicts and the achievement of peace. On this basis it is further argued the BRICS states do not provide a radical challenge to liberal international society or a threat to its future but they will contest and seek to prevent substantial further cosmopolitan progress.