This book explores the institution of the International Criminal Court (ICC) as a policy
instrument. It argues that after the Cold War the European Union started challenging the
unilateral policies of the United States by promoting new norms and institutions such as the
ICC. This development flies in the face of traditional explanations for cooperation which
would theorize institutionalization as the result of hegemonic preponderance rational
calculations or common identities. The book explains the dynamics behind the emergence of the
ICC with a novel theoretical concept of normative binding. Normative binding is a strategy that
provides middle powers with the means to tie down the unilateral policies of powerful actors
that prefer not to cooperate. The idea is to promote new multilateral norms and deposit them in
institutions which have the potential to become binding even on unilateralist actors if the
majority of states adhere to them.
