ARDA YURTÇU
During my undergraduate studies, I focused on international law from a political science perspective. I have a cosmopolitan liberalist
understanding of human rights law. I think the normative basis of the International Criminal Court is heavily influenced by a European Kantian understanding of universal jurisdiction. Cosmopolitanism in the ICC context is not a straightforward approach in reforming international realm. Rather, it demonstrates that the politics of state support for the ICC is occuring mostly in the realm of cosmopolitan moral politics. Contrary to what I argue here, in 2022 I have analyzed 'the regionalisation of criminal justice' through political realism perspective. By tracing the EULEX - Kosovo diplomatic processs, I speculated on the power interests and politics behind the Kosovo Specialist Chambers:
And below is my first paper on the subject matter, where I explain the main pillars and foundation of the ICC:
Creation of the International Criminal Court
As part of my “Human Rights Thesis” seminar, I had a chance to focus on the socio-legal roots of the European Human Rights regime. I assessed the cross-national citation patterns to understand how do French jugdes deal with refugee rights (Find the link here for my thesis written in 2023 & yet to be published.)
Building on my prior work on the Hague regime , I would like to extend my research agenda to understand the international accountability efforts in a time of global populism. Those of particular academic interests include the functioning of International, Impartial and Indepednetn Mechanism Investigating Serious Crimes in Syria (IIIM), established in a landmark vote by UN General Assembly in 2016, as well as the former International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemela (CICIG). What is interesting with these transitional justice mechanisms is that they were built upon a post-authoritarianist ideology. I would be interested in analyzing the gender-based atrocities and war crimes, specifically as part of the civil wars. Special thanks to Prof. De Vos from Columbia University for his inspring and thought-provocative research on the subject.
As a future research agenda, I hope to delve into how different forms of cosmopolitanism politics --control, order, citizenship-- have influenced the jurisdiction of the ICC. I need to read more on the philosophical foundations of International Criminal Law, i.e. how can we consider the notions of 'community interests,' 'legal good,' in the context of the ICC.