Christopher Rudolph, Power and Principle

In recent years, a cornucopia of interdisciplinary scholarship on international (criminal) courts and tribunals (ICCTs) has accumulated: employing a broad range of topical foci and disciplinary lenses, many of these contributions have sided with constructivist approaches in analysing and explaining the origins, design, and operations of quite different adjudicative bodies. Particularly with regard to scrutinizing notions such as power, however, (theoretical) arguments in both international relations and international law scholarship have generated vibrant debates across different scholarly camps, while oftentimes forcing discussants to espouse exclusively single theoretical schools of thought. This preliminary consideration is also echoed and subsequently addressed in Christopher Rudolph’s monograph. In the volume, the author exposes the myriad of contingencies by which interdependencies between power and principle have determined both the institutional design and adjudicative practice of different ICCTs. His analysis thus bears implications for both legal scholars and practitioners, highlighting the very modus operandi determining the function and activities of ICCTs within the international arena and the constant need to balance idealist aspirations with more pragmatic imperatives

Criminal court · Criminology · International law · Physics · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Sociology · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · International Law and Human Rights · Law