doi.org
Head of State Immunity and the International Criminal Court: Re-Reading the Immunity Debate Through Wight’s Three Traditions
Abstract The enforcement of international criminal law depends on state cooperation, yet persistent disagreements over whether sitting Heads of State from non-parties to the International Criminal Court enjoy immunity from arrest suggest a challenge that doctrinal analysis alone cannot resolve. This article undertakes an interdisciplinary, meta-doctrinal analysis, drawing on Martin Wight’s three traditions of international theory (Realism, Revolutionism and Rationalism) to argue that divergent interpretations of Articles 27 and 98 of the Rome Statute are driven by fundamentally different philosophical ideas about the nature of international society. Applying this framework to state responses to arrest warrants against Al-Bashir, Putin and Netanyahu, the analysis shows how each tradition influences the assumptions on which doctrinal reasoning about the applicable law proceeds, yielding divergent, and mutually exclusive, interpretations. The immunity debate thus emerges as a permanent site of contestation, shaped by competing visions of international order embedded within the Rome Statute itself.
