Missed Opportunities in the Judicialisation of International Criminal Law? Asian States in the Emergence and Spread of the Rome Statute System to Punish Atrocity Crimes

The expansion of the Rome Statute system is a clear indication of the judicialisation of international law, a normative trend that has accelerated in the past few decades. However, the current state of judicialisation cannot be regarded as ‘a linear story of success’.’ According to a critical analysis of Asian States’ overall engagement with the Rome Statute process, the International Criminal Court (ICC)-centered judicialisation has been stagnant in Asia. The author seeks to examine why Asian representation and participation in the ICC system have been consistently and significantly lower than in any other region. Just as the recent shift in Africa’s engagement with the ICC has attracted much scholarly attention for (re)assessing the relationship between African States and the Court, Asia’s continued silence in this field of law must also be raised as an important issue. This paper finds three types of common experiences shared by the overwhelming majority of Asian countries. It investigates ways in which the presence of one or a combination of these common contexts have affected Asian States’ ability and willingness to participate in the Rome Statute system.