Acceso usuarios
Is it possible for the ICC to become an actor in political struggles over the definition and labelling of friends and enemies? In our article �Doing Justice to the Political: The International Criminal Court in Uganda and Sudan� we gave an affirmative answer to this question, based on empirical findings from Uganda and Sudan and a concept of the political derived from Schmitt, Kirchheimer and Shklar. Taking Schmitt�s concept of the �enemy of mankind� as his starting point, Schotel disputes our conclusions. Although �parties to a violent/political conflict may try to mobilize the law in their struggle�, Schotel argues, �the structure of the law itself escapes the political: law cannot be �political� in the Schmittian sense�. He continues: �If legal authorities are indeed in the business of defining the enemy of mankind, then they are not doing this through or with the help of the law. They may simply act against the law.� Schotel�s main points of disagreement with our article concern (i) the way in which �enemies of mankind� are created; (ii) the structure of international criminal law; and (iii) the difference between the law and the people applying the law.
