Against Sovereign Impunity: The Political Theology of the International Criminal Court

This chapter construes the recently established International Criminal Court as the “sovereignty-less conscience of humanity.” It argues that the ICC is amenable to analysis in terms of political theology, but one that draws on John Locke rather than on Hobbes's and Schmitt's notions of the absolutist state. Although a court of final judgment, the ICC does not dispense divine punitive justice with an apocalyptic coloring. Rather, the ICC is informed by a divine restorative justice that opposes impunity. This chapter suggests that the ICC's protection of human rights represents a theologico-political determination that potentially replaces or qualifies Schmitt's absolutism.