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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 July 2020
Within international relations the normative agency of African actors is often downplayed or derided. This article develops the concept of bricolage to offer a novel understanding of norm development and contestation in international relations, including the role African actors play in this. We contend that a norm's core hypothesis can be thought of as the nucleus of a norm. In the case of complex international norms, if this core hypothesis is sufficiently vague and malleable, the norm will continue to attract a range of actors who may claim to share a commitment to enacting the core hypothesis even if they simultaneously promote a variety of potentially conflicting and contradictory meanings-in-use of the norm when doing so. Each meaning-in-use, we argue, might be thought of as a product of bricolage: a process of combining and adapting both new and second-hand materials, knowledges, values, and practices by an actor to address a problem in hand. Through a detailed study of the contestation of transitional justice between South Africa and the International Criminal Court, we elucidate how bricolage can help to illuminate the normative agency of African actors in shaping transitional justice. Processes of bricolage add complexity and potentially confusion to a norm's development, but bricolage also offers the potential for a creative and dynamic means by which a range of actors can inject pluralism, dexterity, and vitality into debates about a norm's meaning and operationalisation.
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100 DIRCO, ‘Joint Communiqué issued at the Conclusion of the Working Visit of H.E. President Thabo Mbeki of the Republic of South Africa to the Republic of the Sudan’ (16 September 2008), available at: {http://www.dirco.gov.za/docs/2008/suda0916.html} accessed 17 September 2018.
101 Ibid.
102 The Prosecutor v. Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir, Case No. ICC-02/05-01/09, Decision following the Prosecutor's request for an order further clarifying that the Republic of South African is under an obligation to immediately arrest and surrender Omar Al-Bashir, 13 June 2015, available at: {https://www.icc-cpi.int/CourtRecords/CR2015_06500.PDF} accessed 20 May 2019, pp. 4–5.
103 DIRCO, ‘South Africa's Submission to the International Criminal Court (ICC) Regarding the Matter of President Al-Bashir of Sudan’, press release. Pretoria (5 October 2015), available at: {http://www.dirco.gov.za/docs/2015/suda1005.htm} accessed 17 September 2018).
104 ‘Submission from the Government of the Republic of South Africa’, p. 11.
105 DIRCO, ‘South Africa's Submission to the International Criminal Court’.
106 ‘Submission from the Government of the Republic of South Africa’, p. 16.
107 UN, ‘Notification of South Africa of Withdrawal’, p. 3.
108 ANC, ‘Concourt Decision Halts DA Agenda to Defend Imperialism’, Johannesburg (15 November 2016), available at: {https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/concourt-decision-halts-da-agenda-to-defend-imperi} accessed 10 April 2020.
109 Abrahamsen, ‘Africa and international relations’, p. 134.
110 Ralph, ‘What should be done?’.
111 Wesley W. Widmaier and Luke Glanville, ‘The benefits of norm ambiguity: Constructing the responsibility to protect across Rwanda, Iraq and Libya’, Contemporary Politics, 21:4 (2015), p. 369.
112 For a detailed account, see Clark, Distant Justice.
113 Statement of New Zealand delivered by Mr C. Reaich at the 15th Session of the Assembly State Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (17 November 2016), available at: {https://asp.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/asp_docs/ASP15/GenDeba/ICC-ASP15-GenDeba-NewZealand-ENG.pdf} accessed 13 September 2018.
114 The statements are available at: {https://asp.icc-cpi.int/en_menus/asp/sessions/general%20debate/Pages/GeneralDebate_15th_session.aspx} accessed 13 September 2018.
115 The Prosecutor v Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir, Case No. ICC-02/05-01/09, Order inviting expressions of interest as amici curiae in judicial proceedings (pursuant to rule 103 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence), 29 March 2018, available at: {https://www.icc-cpi.int/CourtRecords/CR2018_01892.PDF} accessed 30 May 2019.
116 Charles Jalloh, Twitter (31 March 2018), available at: {https://twitter.com/CharlesJalloh/status/979870179495698434} accessed 13 September 2018.
117 Diana Goff, Twitter (21 May 2018), available at: {https://twitter.com/dianajanaegoff/status/998570425142702080} accessed 22 May 2018.
118 Statement of the Republic of South Africa by Mr J. Jeffery at the 18th Session of the Assembly State Parties to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (2 December 2019), available at: {https://asp.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/asp_docs/ASP18/GD.SOU.2.12.pdf} accessed 15 January 2020.
