A Fatal Attraction? The UN Security Council and the Relationship between R2P and the International Criminal Court Mark Kersten 1 Introduction: R2P and the ICC - An Under-investigated Relationship Given that the relationship between the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) goes to the very heart of the politics of international justice, it comes as a surprise that few have attempted to establish and interrogate the relationship between them. However, recent events – particularly the case of Libya where both R2P and the ICC were invoked – have created a clear need for scholars and analysts to address questions regarding how R2P and the ICC relate and operate in practice. If both are to be increasingly called upon as responses to mass atrocities, understanding the relationship between these two modes of intervention is of immense importance. In exploring and analyzing the relationship between R2P and the ICC, this paper proceeds in five sections. First, the chapter elucidates the typical understanding of the relationship between R2P and the ICC, one in which the Court and R2P fit neatly within a 'protection continuum'. 2 The second section argues that the relationship is, in fact, much deeper. R2P and the ICC share a common political ethos, liberal cosmopolitanism, which seeks to replace the nation state and national sovereignty with the individual human as the primary referent of international politics. However, as argued in section three, both R2P and the ICC have become increasingly tethered to the power-politics of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), a trend that undermines the ability of either R2P or the ICC to achieve liberal cosmopolitan ends. The fourth section examines the case of Libya, illustrating how the role of the UNSC as the dispenser of R2P and the ICC in Libya coloured the invocation of both in ways that reflected the particular political interests and attitudes of the UNSC members and undermined the liberal cosmopolitan intention of R2P and the ICC. The paper concludes with some reflections on the future of both R2P and the ICC, their relationship to the UNSC and its implications for liberal cosmopolitan projects in international relations. 1 I would like to thank Kirsten Ainley, Toni Erskine, Naomi Head, Joe Hoover, Paul Kirby, James P. Rudolph and Elke Schwarz for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. 2 M. Banda, 'The Responsibility to Protect: Moving the Agenda Forward' (2007) United Nations Association in Canada, p.26; See also F. Mégret, 'ICC, R2P, and the International Community's Evolving Interventionist Toolkit', (2010), http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1933111, p.10 M.Kersten DRAFT : please do not cite or circulate without permission 1