Social Skill, the Milosevic Indictment, and the Rebirth of International Criminal Justice

This paper is about social skill and norm enforcement in the field of international criminal law and its advancement through the indictment of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. We rely on Fligstein's model of social skill to illuminate tactics applied successfully in inducing norm enforcement and cooperation in this field. The study draws on a mail-back survey (n = 109) and over 100 in-depth, personal interviews at the Tribunal's Office of the Prosecutor. The qualitative and quantitative findings provide evidence for the role of institutional entrepreneurs in gaining the cooperation required for the emergence, reproduction, and transformation of fields. In the present study, we find evidence that this momentum has led to a transition in the institutional life of the Tribunal and the broader field of international criminal law.