Introduction

Practitioners and scholars of the International Criminal Court are now bilingual: they speak the familiar language of anti-impunity, justice, and mass violence alongside the more unfamiliar but no less language of strategic planning, audit, appraisal, and optimisation. But how has it happened that such management language now finds a home in this primary institution of global justice? This introductory chapter begins to answer this question by introducing international (criminal) lawyers to management as an expert practice, before positioning the phenomenon within the wider dispositif of the International Criminal Court. The chapter further brings the study of management to international lawyers by offering four axioms of expertise that guide the book’s approach to both international law and management expertise. After briefly outlining the key arguments, the introduction provides an outline of the chapters and a note on the book’s stylistic choices.