Concluding Remarks

This concluding chapter outlines how the norms in the previous chapters interact. While the provisions analysed in Chapter 3 may impose the duty to prosecute, the permissive norms in Chapters 4 and 5 (consent, UNSC approval or international humanitarian law) may confer the required authority to apprehend suspects extraterritorially. However, in a scenario in which the duties to prosecute are not backed with the authority to apprehend extraterritorially and to transfer out of the host/occupied State, norm conflicts potentially arise. The chapter goes through the layered legal obligations resulting from a duty to apprehend extraterritorially in Chapter 3 combined with the following levels of authority derived from Chapters 4 and 5: first, ‘full authority’ to apprehend and transfer; second, authority to detain but not to transfer; third, ‘no authority’, i.e. when international forces neither have the authority to apprehend extraterritorially nor to transfer. Moreover, the effectiveness of the law and its underlying power dynamics are addressed, thereby shifting the discussion to issues de lege ferenda. As previously established, international forces cannot always compensate the host State’s inability or unwillingness to arrest suspects and surrender them to the ICC. Such forces may lack the military capabilities therefor or may not be entitled to do so legally. However, creating a general exception to territorial sovereignty for apprehending core criminals would also lead to selective prosecutions and further weaken the UN's system of collective security.