International Punishment, Expression, and Atrocity Prevention
Abstract
Does punishment by international courts prevent atrocity? While many commentators are low on the potential of international courts to prevent atrocity, social science regularly finds that international criminal law has positive impacts. But we still do not know why. In this chapter, I develop and test a theory that international punishment prevents violence through expression of norms. First, I clarify the distinction between three concepts: prevention, deterrence, and expression. In short, prevention of atrocity constitutes the main goal of international courts, while deterrence (raising the cost of crime) and expression (communicating norms) represent two separate mechanisms for achieving that goal. Second, I argue that criminal sentencing primarily serves an expressivist, not a deterrence, function. Third, I construct cross-national regression models which find that extensiveness of punishment by international courts, measured both by the number and length of sentences imposed on convicted nationals of a country, is associated with less atrocity-level violence over time. Ultimately, I find that while international courts quite possibly prevent violence in some specific situations through deterrence, they generally prevent violence through expression of norms.