Pluralism: a new framework for international criminal justice

This chapter introduces ‘pluralism’ as a framework for international criminal justice and provides an overview of the previous debates on (global) legal pluralism, fragmentation, and diversification of law as they have been framed in different legal disciplines. It then examines the interpretations of these concepts in those contexts and addresses the primary question of vocabulary choices. The pluralism language does not merely reflect a semantic change, but also comes with a paradigm shift. The chapter distinguishes between the dimensions of ‘pluralism’ in international criminal justice and identifies several underlying perspectives that may be valuable in explaining the nature and workings of the ICL project. Finally, it formulates the approach and research questions raised by the pluralism framework and provides an overview of the subsequent chapters.