A catalyst for justice? The International Criminal Court in Uganda, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo

Drawing on several years of field-based research, this dissertation examines what effects framing the International Criminal Court as a “catalyst” for domestic investigations and prosecutions has had in three distinct situation-country contexts: Uganda, Kenya, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It examines how both state and non-state actors have relied upon the principle of complementarity as the logic through which the Court’s catalytic potential can be best realized, as well as a transnational site and adaptive strategy for entrenching the norm of international criminal accountability domestically. In so doing, it asks three principal research questions. First, how has the understanding of complementarity evolved since the ICC’s inception and what role have non-state actors, in particular, played in this evolution? Second, how have ICC judges understood and interpreted complementarity’s requirements in the courtroom, and how has the Office of the Prosecutor sought to implement it as a matter of policy? And third, to what extent and how have the ICC’s interventions in Uganda, Kenya and the DRC affected these countries’ institutional and normative frameworks for carrying out domestic criminal proceedings?