Rejecting the US challenge to the International Criminal Court: Normative entrapment and compromise in EU policy-making

Achieving European Union (EU) unity in world affairs is particularly difficult when divergent Member State preferences are reinforced by US pressure. This paper explains how the EU maintained unity on the International Criminal Court (ICC) despite a concerted American effort in 2002 to exploit intra-EU discord on the issue of agreements to shield citizens from certain states from ICC scrutiny. Some Member States were sympathetic to American efforts to shield US personnel from the ICC, while others considered them incompatible with the EU's prior commitment to support the new Court. By comparing the process and outcome of two sets of negotiations on this issue, one within the UN Security Council and one within EU forums, the paper suggests that the likelihood of EU policy outcomes being shaped by prior normative commitments and cooperative bargaining (as expected by Normative Institutionalism) rather than competitive bargaining (Intergovernmentalism) depends significantly upon the institutional context in which the Member States negotiate. International Politics (2009) 46, 376-394. doi: 10.1057/ip.2009.8