Alexandra Kemmerer
Ten years ago, on 1 July 2002, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court entered into force. Germany had been one of the driving forces to facilitate the establishment of the ICC, and it remains a firm supporter. While France and Great Britain had been reluctant at first, Western Germany convinced all European partners in the mid-1990s of its vision of an independent ICC, not subjected to the control of the UN Security Council. And it fostered and promoted that European position, against fierce US opposition.
According to the � meanwhile hardened � politico-historical narrative, the clash between Europeans and Americans can be interpreted as a facet of the struggle between Mars and Venus: on one side, the realist and interest-oriented superpower; on the other side, the idealist Europeans, bound to an ideal of post-national cosmopolitanism. Germany's radical shift from a sceptical position towards international criminal law in the aftermath of the Nuremberg trials to a position of dedicated support manifests, or so the common narrative goes, a turn from old-fashioned power-oriented Realpolitik to an idealist "legal cosmopolitanism" aiming at the comprehensive legalization of international politics.
But is that true? Ronen Steinke, a lawyer and political journalist, has carefully analysed the current German position and its formation. Steinke explicitly distances himself from a mainstream liberal perspective that explains Germany's politics of international criminal justice as an approach to international law inspired by values and enhanced by a feeling of "historical duty". Drawing on selected government documents and interviews with policymakers, the author presents an exploration of German interests and positions from a realist perspective. This realist perspective is often used to explain �