Negotiating justice, rebel behaviors, and war outcomes in the era of accountability

My three-essay dissertation, Negotiating Justice, Rebel Behaviors, and War Outcomes in the Era of Accountability, examines the impact of the rapid expansion of international criminal prosecutions targeting rebels on the dynamics of civil conflict. Prevailing scholarship has predominantly focused on how the international justice regime undermines amnesty, thereby affecting peace negotiations between rebel groups and governments. Nevertheless, this focus has led to a significant oversight: the tendency of rebel groups to seek refuge in foreign territories to evade punishment. My dissertation addresses this gap by examining both the internal and external threats of punishment faced by rebel actors under the shadow of international prosecutions and their combined effect on rebel behaviors and civil war outcomes. It specifically investigates how and under what conditions the International Criminal Court (ICC) and foreign trials via Universal Jurisdiction (UJ) represent threats to rebel groups. To this end, the research tests three expectations concerning the effects of the international justice regime on: (1) the locations where rebels operate and establish safe havens, (2) the patterns of amnesty provisions for war crimes, and (3) the conflict termination and rebel violence against civilians. Each hypothesis is explored in a separate essay, drawing on large-N analyses with two original datasets (1946–2023) covering rebel leader exile and state commitments to UJ.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Political Science

Grantor

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2025

Author dc:creator

• Kim, Myung Jung

Contributors dc:contributor

• Prorok, Alyssa K.
• Diehl, Paul F.
• Dai, Xinyuan
• Tam, Wendy
• Ginsburg, Tom

• Civil War
• International Justice
• Rebel Behaviors
• War Outcome
• Exile
• Amnesty
• Civilian Victimization

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2025 Myung Jung Kim

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/129723

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F129723