Negotiating Sovereignty and Human Rights

Negotiating Sovereignty and Human Rights takes the transatlantic conflict over the International Criminal Court as a lens for an enquiry into the normative foundations of international society. The author shows how the way in which actors refer to core norms of international society, such as sovereignty and human rights, affects the process and outcome of international negotiations.

The book offers an innovative take on the long-standing debate over sovereignty and human rights in international relations. It goes beyond the simple and sometimes ideological duality of sovereignty versus human rights by demonstrating that sovereignty and human rights are not competing principles, as is often argued, but rather complement each other.

The way in which these two norms and their relationship are understood lies at the core of actors' broader visions of world order. The author illustrates how competing interpretations of sovereignty and human rights, and the different visions of world order they imply, fed into the transatlantic debate over the ICC, transforming this debate into a conflict over the normative foundations of international society.