Rough Justice

The Wall Street Journal Excellent.

Journal of International Criminal Justice One of if not, the most significant contributions to understanding relationships between states and the ICC in recent years.

Ethics & International Affairs The best account so far of the trajectory of the ICC from its optimistic origins to the more constrained court of today.... Written in an engaging and accessible style, the book should be of interest to the nonspecialist as well.

International Journal: Canada's Journal of Global Policy Analysis Energetic, well-written, and genuinely informative.

Texas Law Review Excellent.

Berkeley Journal of International Law A rigorously researched and credible piece of work with the readability and up-to-date feeling of a blog.... Rough Justice is an excellent work on the recent history of the ICC, succinct and subtle in its analysis.

Moises Naim, Senior Associate, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of The End of Power
Is the International Criminal Court one of humanity's great achievements or just another futile multilateral organization? Many see it as an important step towards making the world more just, while several nations - including the United States - consider it a threat. What is it? While the answers are controversial, the facts about the Court are not, and in this extraordinary book, David Bosco gives us the history and the facts and smartly guides us on how to think about an institution that may change the world. A must read.

Jack Goldsmith, Harvard Law School
This is the most realistic and insightful book ever written on the ICC, one that surprises in showing how much the ICC has accomplished since its founding, and how integral the United States has become to its success.

Anne-Marie Slaughter, Princeton University and President and CEO, New America Foundation
David Bosco has produced the first balanced and sophisticated assessment of the International Criminal Court's opening decade. Blending legal analysis and political science, he analyzes both the Court's power and the continuing constraints on that power, in a way that is likely to frame both scholarly and policy debates about the Court in its second decade. A significant achievement.

Erik Voeten, Edmund E. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
David Bosco's lucid and thoughtful analysis of how the major powers try (and sometimes succeed) to control or marginalize the International Criminal Court should be required reading for anyone interested in the Court and international institutions. As in Five to Rule Them All, Bosco expertly makes his insightful scholarly analysis appealing to a broader audience.

Michael Barnett, The George Washington University
In this sober and clear-eyed account of the ICC, David Bosco expertly shows the reasons for the United States' evolving and more accepting attitude toward the court. Based on interviews with man...

David Bosco teaches international politics and law at American University's School of International Service. He is the author of Five to Rule Them All: The UN Security Council and the Making of the Modern World. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he is a former attorney and senior editor at Foreign Policy magazine. He writes the Multilateralist blog for Foreign Policy.

Introduction ; 1. A Framework for Analysis ; 2. Origins ; 3. The Phantom Court (1998-2002) ; 4. Caution and Consensus (July 2002-March 2005) ; 5. Breakthrough (2005-2008) ; 6. Power Plays (2008-2012) ; Conclusion: A Constrained Court