Promoting International Humanitarian Law: Strong States and the Ratification of the ICC Treaty

Abstract

The establishment of the International Criminal Court presents nation-states with a fairly novel opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to international humanitarian law, or to signal their displeasure with its development and the risks it poses to their sovereignty and foreign policies. The aim of this paper is to analyze the incentive structure of states to ratify the ICC treaty—the Treaty of Rome—in order to better understand the means by which some states promote the principles of international humanitarian law. We argue that economically powerful states with a normative commitment to and foreign policy interests in the advancement of international humanitarian law in general, and the ICC in particular, are their chief advocates and through their economic influence are able to persuade other nations to ratify the Treaty of Rome. We find that states with exemplary human rights records are the most supportive of the ICC, and that the more susceptible a nation is to economic pressure from stronger supporters of the ICC, the more likely it is to ratify the treaty.