| Summary: | Since 1998 the Rome Statute system and the International Criminal Court have become the most prominent international institutional set-up created to address the question of formal accountability for international crimes. While the ICC has been the subject of in-depth studies and critiques, a holistic analysis of the Rome Statute system’s limitations and potential is still missing. In this thesis I turn this overarching question into a question viable for an empirical analysis of the system of Rome: What factors affect the success or failure of ICC-led and state-led trial justice paths in the context of the Rome Statute system? I address this question by viewing the system of Rome as an operational system designed to produce courtroom-based justice through the actions of the ICC and state actors on the basis of the roadmap of the Rome Statute. From this definitional standpoint, I analyse what factors hinder or determine the ICC and state actors’ ability to bring trials to fruition in practice and thus make them effective vehicles of trial justice. I conduct this analysis ethnograpically, analysing the case study of Uganda, where an international and a domestic trial justice route have been pursued concomitantly by the ICC and state institutions. Through the analysis of this case study, I demonstrate that factors related to the institutional nature of and rapport between the ICC, domestic courts and state actors, to the day-to-day practice of trial justice and to the Rome Statute’s blueprint for action, all impact the potential for success of ICC and state-led prosecutorial paths. By extension I demonstrate that systemic fragility and potential can be found in the system’s architectural institutional framework, in the practice of trial justice and in the Rome Statute’s ability to function as a ‘best practice’ model for the ICC and domestic courts alike. This thesis is based on extensive fieldwork conducted at the ICC and in Uganda.
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