The ICC and the Ocampo Six: Understanding the Court’s possibilities and limitations

It also suggests that supporters cannot promise their constituencies that the Court can lead to desirable political consequences.

So what can Court supporters do that is game-changing, without deploying the staple of threats and promises?

One option is to focus on an area where they control a powerful tool that ultimately determines the outcome of prosecutions, both national and local: Information and documentation.

In a perfect world, the Prosecutor decides the cases to pursue based upon assessment of all available evidence in a situation. In the world of limited resources where the Court is expected to deliver quick results, and where the collection of evidence by the Court itself can only start once an investigation is open, the Court relies significantly on information obtained from others in preliminary stages.

This means available information (provided by parties with a range of interests, both good and bad) determines where targeted investigations begin their effort.

Understanding this limitation of the Court should focus Court supporters on documentation of information that the Court can use, rather than making claims about matters of Court action and consequences that are and should be unknown.

Documentation would be useful beyond the ICC; it would provide essential information for future use when domestic prosecution in Kenya is eventually possible.

Lydiah Kemunto Bosire is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford (New College). She is the co-founder of Oxford Transitional Justice Research, and consults for the UN