The Law of the Peoples, Political Cosmopolitanism and the International Criminal Court: "Testing the Limits and Possibilities of Decency and Social Cooperation".

This paper deals with the question how the application of the ICC's ordering principles of complementarity and moral accountability will impact the composition of what Rawls has called ´decent hierarchical societies´. In answering this question, I propose that Rawls's minimalist threshold of justice explains the social obstacles of (state) cooperation regarding the ICC and establishes an important starting point for evaluating its evolving dynamics. Rawls's "Law of Peoples" thus moves us beyond a strictly realpolitik interpretation of the ICC - which reflects the pessimism underlying the ICC's enforcement powers or its future efficacy. It does so by offering us an important means of balancing the ICC's universal morality against state politics and the challenges posed by the lack of a reliable (global) enforcement mechanism. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]