To what extent does soft law ensure harmonisation? Does it replace the governing law or does it complement it?

This chapter explores the relationship between ICC interventions and efforts to reform the normative legal frameworks in Uganda, Kenya and the Democratic Republic of Congo with respect to atrocity crimes. It argues that it was less the ICC’s intervention or the desire to undertake domestic prosecutions that catalysed the passage of national implementation legislation in Uganda or Kenya; rather, implementation of the Statute was undertaken at certain political moments in order to ‘perform’ complementarity, typically for international audiences. But while the power of external constituencies was largely responsible for driving the implementation process, it often glossed over deeper concerns about the desirability of pursuing criminal accountability. The chapter also illustrates how the near identical importation of the Rome Statute’s substantive and procedural provisions reflects an increasingly disciplinary approach to implementation. By contrast, in the DRC, political mistrust in international judicial intervention not only thwarted the passage of comprehensive implementing legislation for many years, but appeared to encourage a more syncretic approach to implementation later on. Further, political contestation within the DRC was itself a catalyst that allowed other implementation strategies to take root, including the direct application of the Rome Statute by Congolese military judges in domestic proceedings.