Description
This paper examines how some states (e.g., Sudan, Kenya, and Rwanda) implicated in atrocity crimes have managed to wage effective international delegitimation campaigns against international criminal tribunals. This question is addressed through a comparative examination of the strategies that targeted states have deployed to undermine the international legitimacy of the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslaiva and Rwanda as well as the International Criminal Court (ICC). State delegitimation campaigns commonly aim to refute a tribunal's narrative of state criminality by spinning a counter-narrative portraying the state as a victim of a politicized tribunal that has betrayed its lofty principles of impartiality. I argue that one type of targeted state – referred to as a "victor-victim" state and represented by the Tutsi-led Rwandan Patriotic Front government – is ideally positioned to garner international support for its anti-tribunal delegitimation campaign and to spin an effective counter-narrative. Another type of state – referred to as a "loser-perpetrator" state and represented by Milosevic's Serbia – is particularly ill-positioned to do so. Finally, the paper shows that certain state delegitimation attacks can prove effective when they raise substantive concerns about the integrity of tribunal practice.
