Building An Abolition Movement for International Criminal Law?

This article critically examines international criminal law as a carceral system that responds to mass atrocities primarily through individual criminalization and imprisonment, and explores the possibility of building a carceral abolitionist movement within this field. It analyzes the structural conditions of international criminal law—rooted in neoliberalism, racial capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism—that produce selective criminalization, disproportionately targeting Black and Brown individuals while exonerating others. The article discusses the limited but instructive role of the defence of duress, transformative reparations, and defence lawyers' critiques as existing tools that may aid in imagining alternatives to the current punitive system. Ultimately, it advocates for abolitionist approaches that focus on addressing the social, political, and economic causes of mass violence through community-based, non-carceral forms of justice and accountability, aiming to build a more humane global order beyond imprisonment and policing.