Abstract

The International Criminal Court was created with the aim of expanding the virtues of Law to spaces that remained beyond its reach. In Paul Kahn's words, the establishment of the International Criminal Court can be understood as an effort to replace the language of power for the language of law. However, the International Criminal Court still has a long way to go in the path towards legality. In order to sustain this last claim, this article reviews the ways in which the problems of a life without a State are expressed in the operations of the International Criminal Court. By looking into the problem of selectivity it will then be argued that the current institutional structure of the Court is an obstacle for the justification of international punishment. The main purpose of these considerations is not to criticize the Court but to show that the justification of punishment always depends on the justification of the political arrangement in which it takes place.