| Summary: | "This book explores the debate over universal jurisdiction in international criminal law, aiming to unpack a practice in which international lawyers continue to disagree over the concept of universal jurisdiction. Using Martti Koskenniemi's work as a foil, this book exposes the argumentative techniques in operation in national and international adjudication since the 1990s. Drawing on overarching patterns within the debate, [the author] argues that it is bounded by a tension between contrasting political preferences or positions, labelled as moralist ('ending impunity') and formalist ('avoiding abuse') and she reads the debate as a movement of hegemonic and counter-hegemonic positions that struggle for hegemonic control. However, she draws out how these positions (moralist/formalist) merge into one another and this produces a tendency towards a "middle" position that continues to prefer a particular preference (moralist or formalist). Aisling O'Sullivan then traces the transformation towards this tendency that reflects an internal split among international lawyers between building a utopia ("court of humanity") and recognizing its impossibility of being realized.
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