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Norm Research in International
Relations

Series Editor
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Institut für Politikwissenschaft, University of Hamburg, Hamburg,
Germany

This book series offers an outlet for interdisciplinary research on

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 More information about this series at http://​www.​springer.​com/​
series/​15646
Emanuela Piccolo Koskimies

Norm Contestation, Sovereignty and

(Ir)responsibility at the International
Criminal Court
Debunking Liberal Anti-Politics
1st ed. 2022
Emanuela Piccolo Koskimies
University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

ISSN 2522-8676 e-ISSN 2522-8684

Norm Research in International Relations
ISBN 978-3-030-85933-6 e-ISBN 978-3-030-85934-3
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85934-3

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive

license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022

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Dedicated to my mother, my father and my sister, for they have been the
first to teach me the importance of looking at things with a critical eye
and of grappling with inequality and privilege
Acknowledegments
This book is largely drawn from my Ph.D. dissertation at the University
of Helsinki, titled ‘Sovereignty as Responsibility at the International
Criminal Court: The ‘Frontiers’ of International Judicial Intervention’,
and it could not have come into being without the generous support
that I received from numerous sources. In the first place, I wish to
thank my Ph.D. supervisor, Heikki Patomä ki. To Heikki I offer my
sincere appreciation for their continued guidance, encouragement, and
critical thinking, which helped drive my research forward and to
greater depths. I would also like to thank Anthony Lang, Barry Gills,
Outi Korhonen, Jason Ralph, and Riikka Kuusisto for their constructive
criticism of earlier versions of this book. Furthermore, I wish to
acknowledge the precious advice and support provided by Martti
Koskenniemi, Christine Schwö bel-Patel, Wouter Werner, Tanja Aalberts,
Ekaterina Yahyaoui, William Schabas, Kevin Jon Heller, Peter Sutch,
Timo Kivimä ki, Tonny Brems Knudsen, Teivo Teivainen, and Michael
Zü rn, among several other exceptional scholars whom I have had the
privilege of encountering along the journey that has brought this book
to life. My most sincere appreciation also goes to Antje Wiener and the
Springer editorial team, and, in particular, to Johannes Glaeser and
Judith Kripp. Among the numerous other contributions that made this
book possible, I would like to thank the organs of the ICC, along with all
who generously took part in the interviews undertaken for the purpose
of the present work. I am also greatly indebted to all my friends for the
countless times they supported and encouraged me; and I cannot
express enough thanks to my family for their unconditional love and
appreciation, and to Matteo, as his love of wisdom and our sustained
conversations were of inestimable value in the preparation of the book.
Finally, I extend my heartfelt thanks to my colleagues of the ‘WISH MI—
Wellbeing Integrated System of Milan’ team of the City of Milan, who
have provided me with a concrete avenue for standing by those whose
voices need to be better heard and for striving together for a more
equal society.
Abbreviations
App Appeal
Apr. April
ASP Assembly of States Parties
AU African Union
BIS Bank for International Settlements
CAH Crimes against humanity
CAICL Critical Approaches to International Criminal Law
CAR Central African Republic
CBF Committee on Budget and Finance
CITES Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of
Wild Fauna and Flora
COIBurundi Commission of Inquiry on Burundi
Dec. December
DRC Democratic Republic of Congo
e.g. exempli gratia
ECHR European Court of Human Rights
ECJ European Court of justice
ed(s) editor(s)
EIC European Investigative Collaborations
EISA European International Studies Association
EJIL European Journal of International Law
ES English School
etc. et cetera
Feb. February
FICHL Forum for International Criminal and Humanitarian Law
FIDH International Federation of Human Rights
FRPI Forces de Résistance Patriotique d’Ituri
HRC
Human Rights Council
HRW Human Rights Watch
i.e. id est
IACHR Inter-American Court of Human Rights
Ibid Ibidem
IBRD International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
ICC International Criminal Court
ICISS International Commission on Intervention and State
Sovereignty
ICJ International Court of Justice
ICRtoP International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect
ICTR International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda
ICTY International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
IGOs Intergovernmental organizations
IHAT Iraq Historical Allegations Team
ILC International Law Commission
IMF International Monetary Fund
IOs International Organizations
IPCC Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
IPO International Progress Organization
IR International Relations
ISA Internal Security Agency
Jan. January
LMG ‘like-minded group’
LRA Lord’s Resistance Amy
Mar. March
MLC Mouvement de Libération du Congo
n note
NIRT Towards a New International Relations Theory
NTC National Transitional Council
NY New York
Oct. October
ODM Orange Democratic Movement
OHCHR Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights
OTP Office of the Prosecutor
OUP Operation Unified Protector
P-5 Permanent members of the United Nations Security Council
para. Paragraph
PEs Preliminary Examinations
PEV Post-electoral violence
PKOs Peace-keeping Operations
PNU Party of National Unity
PrepCom Preparatory Committee on the Establishment of the ICC
PTC Pre-Trial Chamber
R2P Responsibility to Protect
Rep Reparations
RPE Rules of Procedure and Evidence
Term Termination
Tot. Total
TWAIL Third World Approaches to International Law
UNFCCC UN Framework Convention on Climate Change
UNHCR UN High Commissioner for Refugees
UNSC United Nations Security Council
UPC Union des Patriotes Congolais
v. versus
WC War Crimes
WTO World Trade Organization
WWII World War II
Contents
1 Introduction:​Beyond the Practice-Norm Gap
1.1 A Critical Constructivist Approach
1.​2 The Current Practice-Norm Gap
1.​3 Redressing the Gap
1.​4 The Structure of the Book
References
2 Sovereignty and the Life-Cycle of Norms Revisited
2.​1 Introduction
2.​2 Sovereignty:​Beyond the Norm/​Fact Incommensurabili​ty
2.​3 The Westphalian Model of Sovereign Equality Discarded
Once and for All
2.​3.​1 The Peace of Westphalia
2.​3.​2 The United Nations and Decolonization
2.​4 Norm Development in International Society
2.​4.​1 Constructivism and Norm Development:​Strengths and
Shortcomings
2.​4.​2 Beyond Critique:​Norm Development Re-apprised
References
3 Shaping Sovereignty as Responsibility at the ICC (Part I):​The
Rome Statute
3.​1 Introduction:​Between ‘Sovereignty-Limiting’ Rationale and
‘Sovereignty-Based’ Operation
3.​2 The Institutional Architecture of the Rome Statute:​
Kowtowing to State Sovereignty
3.​2.​1 A Consent Regime
3.​2.​2 The Role of State Parties in Financial Oversight:​From
the Withholding of Resources to the Steering of
 Prosecutorial Discretion
3.​2.​3 The Lack of a Reliable International Enforcement
Mechanism
3.​3 Selecting Situations and Cases Before the ICC:​The Contours
of the Problem
3.​3.​1 Gravity and Its Muddy Waters:​Between Legal
Minimum Threshold and Discretionary Criterion
3.​3.​2 The Inescapable Ambivalence of Complementarity
3.​3.​3 The Continuing Mystery of the Interests of Justice
3.​3.​4 The Role of Judicial Review:​Between Statutory
Shortcomings, Missed Opportunities, and Structural Limits
3.​4 Conclusions:​The Untenability of Pure Legalism
References
4 Shaping Sovereignty as Responsibility at the ICC (Part II):​The
Test of Institutional Practice
4.​1 Introduction:​From Sovereignty as Responsibility to
Irresponsible Sovereignty
4.​2 A Tilt Towards ‘Sovereign-Backed’ Situations
4.​2.​1 Preliminary Examinations, Politics, and Pragmatism
4.​3 Case Selection and the Court’s Blind Eye
4.​3.​1 Self-Referrals and the Hobbesian Turn Laid Bare
4.​3.​2 An ad hoc Court of the UNSC
4.​4 The Persistent Failure to Successfully Prosecute
Representatives of State Power
4.​4.​1 The Sudanese Stalemate
4.​4.​2 The Collapse of the Kenyan Cases
4.​4.​3 A New Course in the ICC’s Prosecutorial Strategy?​More
‘Willing’ but Not Any More ‘Able’
 4.​5 Conclusions:​A Full-Blown Short-Circuit
References
5 Conclusions.​Irresponsible Sovereignty:​A Dead-End?​
5.​1 In Defence of a Greater Supranationalism​?​
5.​2 The Role of Coercion in International Law:​Another Round-
Up
5.​3 Sovereignty as Responsibility:​A Re-Politicized Perspective
5.​3.​1 The Slippery Slope of Supranationalism​
5.​4 Closing Remarks
References
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
E. Piccolo Koskimies, Norm Contestation, Sovereignty and (Ir)responsibility at the
International Criminal Court, Norm Research in International Relations
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85934-3_1

1. Introduction: Beyond the Practice-

Norm Gap
Emanuela Piccolo Koskimies1
(1) University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Emanuela Piccolo Koskimies

Email: emanuelapiccolo85@gmail.com

Norms lie in the practice

—Wiener (2018, 27)

1.1 A Critical Constructivist Approach

At the end of the Cold War, normative inquiry once again raised its
voice amidst the clamour of contending accounts of the international
order (Walker 1994, 265). Whereas the conditions for a revival of
normative inquiry were clearly propitious at that time, it is interesting
to note that competing claims of change and continuity are still at the
centre of heated debates today, three decades later (Rotmann et al.
2014, 359). Against that backdrop, prominent observers have regarded
the emergence of a new norm of sovereignty as responsibility as one of
the most significant normative shifts in international society since the
aftermath of World War II (Badescu 2014–2015; Bellamy 2015, 53;
Bellamy and Dunne 2016, Etzioni 2006; Evans 2016, 914–915; Sikkink
2017, 27; Teitt, 2017, 326–327; Thakur and Weiss 2009, 23). In 2005,
Anne-Marie Slaughter referred to the latter as a ‘tectonic shift’
(Slaughter 2005, 627) that reinterprets ‘the very act of signing the
Charter in ways that will create a new legal and diplomatic discourse
about member states’ obligations to their own people and to one
another’ (ibid.). Today, nearly 15 years after Slaughter’s celebratory
statements, we live in a world where the liberal discourse on the
domestication of the international domain has clearly shifted onto the
defensive (Chandler 2010, 7). Yet, supported by the Kantian maxim of
humanity’s ongoing moral progress, the idea of a progressive
recharacterization of sovereignty as responsibility seems able to
withstand the current setbacks; and, actually, it is still a cornerstone of
many accounts of the world order. Having said that, whereas the
resilience of the concept may be interpreted as corroborating its own
theoretical strength, the present investigation goes exactly in the
opposite direction. It questions the set of theoretical foundations that
underlies current narratives of sovereignty as responsibility.
Furthermore, delving into the intersection between normative and
empirical studies, it critically engages with the popular view that
situates the International Criminal Court (ICC) at the cutting edge of
normative change.
This book moves from the assumption that the current debate about
sovereignty has responsibility is hampered by a limited—more to the
point, positivist—understanding about the development of norms
within international society. Coming from the Latin positum, i.e. put or
set, ‘positivism’ generally designates any system that confines itself to
the data of experience. In the 1980s, Jean-François Lyotard wrote that
‘we are all stuck in the positivism of this or that discipline of
knowledge’ (Lyotard 1979, 41). Today, almost 40 years later, a
substantial part of social theory is still modelled on positivism. Yet,
what I have in mind when speaking of positivism is not a full-fledged
and self-reflexive line of thought (Dahms 2015, 168–169), but rather a
broadly meant attitude of thought which underlies an empiricist
reduction of knowledge to observation (ibid.), with a consequent
curtailment of the depth of theoretical perception (Alexander 1982,
10).
The current dominant understanding of norm development was
developed by Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink two decades ago
within constructivist IR theory (Finnemore and Sikkink, 1998), before
being rapidly mainstreamed all across the discipline. In line with the
positivist reductionism summoned above, Finnemore and Sikkink’s
model lends itself to the naturalization—in this context, meaning
primarily depoliticization—of what is being observed, thus prompting a
premature closure of the analysis (Hopf 1998, 183). More to the point,
yielding to a positivistic, static account of law which understands rules
as generating determinant and predictable outcomes over the course of
their application (Brunnée and Toope 2018, 432), Finnemore and
Sikkink regard norm institutionalization within ‘tangible’ sets of rules
or organizations as a moment of clarity and stabilization (Welsh 2013,
380). The task of norm research is, hence, deemed to be complete once
states have ratified treaties (ibid.). That is to say, norm
institutionalization is reduced to an end-point of the norm emergence
process, and is thus ultimately displaced from its role as a creative
juncture (Betts and Orchard 2014, 2). It is from the standpoint just
outlined that many observers have acclaimed the entry into force of the
Rome Statute as an unequivocal success of justice and protection over
sovereignty. In contrast, the following chapters aim to overcome the
underlying positivism of the conventional constructivist account by
advancing a critical qualification thereof, whereby the adjective ‘critical’
specifically evokes the undertaking of critical international theory,
meant as the spectrum of ‘post-positivist’ and ‘post-rationalist’ strands
of IR that emerged in the 1980s to challenge the dominance of
neorealism and neoliberalism (Price and Reus-Smit 1998, 289). These
encompass post-Marxist scholarships influenced by the Frankfurt
School, as well as post-modernist approaches (ibid.). Constructivism
can also be regarded as an outgrowth of the so-called ‘Third Debate
critical theory’ (ibid.; Checkel, 2006), but with an important caveat. To
the extent that constructivism creates distance—theoretical,
epistemological, and methodological—between itself and its origins in
critical theory, it becomes ‘conventional’ (Hopf 1998, 181), or ‘liberal’,
as Antje Wiener has put it (Wiener 2020). While Finnemore and
Sikkink have opted for the conventional route, which nowadays
underpins the (mainstream) sovereignty as responsibility debate, this
book seeks to realign the latter to a critical—and, more to the point,
post-modern—sensitivity.1 Such sensitivity implies, first and foremost,
the displacement of the universal, rational subject who can act as an
autonomous and self-willed agent in the political realm (Newman 2005,
4). The so-called ‘humanist subject’ is, hence, decentred and reimagined
as ‘a site of disarray and conflict inscribed by multiple contestatory
discourses’ (Lather 1991, 5) and intersecting power circuits, the
unmasking of which becomes central to the research endeavour. From
such a genealogical deconstruction of subjectivity, a radical break with
‘totalizing, universalizing “metanarratives”’ (ibid.) also follows,
including the rationalist epistemologies and positivist beliefs which,
prompted by the Enlightenment, have become the trademark of
modernity (Newman 2005, 4). Finally, a post-modern approach cannot
fail to question liberalism as the political correspondent to the
epistemology of the Enlightenment (Golder 2010, 355). In other words,
it is keen on challenging liberalism’s assumed neutrality and
universality, by uncovering the ‘relations of power, discipline and
exclusion through which liberal identities are constituted’ (Newman
2005, 28).
Having sketched both the shortcomings of the conventional
constructivist understanding of norm development on the one hand,
and the broad theoretical, epistemological, and methodological framing
of the present contribution on the other, it is now easier to enter into a
discussion of the substance of its aim as well.This book intends to
challenge the dominant narrative about sovereignty as responsibility by
offering a critical—and, notably, post-positivist—qualification of the
conventional constructivist understanding of norm development. Such
intended qualification shares with the conventional approach the
acknowledgement that state behaviour depends on social facts, and, it
is, therefore, structured by norms. In other words, the present
contribution fully recognizes the social construction of international
society through socially constitutive practices. Nevertheless, it also
reverses the standard tendency to reduce norm institutionalization to
an end-point of the norm emergence process, for it brings the
configuration of normativity in and through practice to the forefront of
the analysis (Wiener 2014). More to the point, the book explores the
reconstitution of norms as part of institutional practice while being
particularly keen on identifying embedded power and authority
structures. That is to say, the following chapters seek to revive
discussions about the power-laden nature of the normative fabric of
international society (Liste 2017, 10), and its own dis-symmetries and
outright hierarchies, by paying special attention to how the relative
power of relevant actors reconstitutes norms during norm negotiation
and implementation. However, let me be clear on this point: the ensuing
chapters do not aim to merely track how power and interests constrain
international institutions in practice. This task, indeed, has already kept
realists and neoliberals alike busy for several decades. Instead, this
book makes a leap beyond the study of how norms are applied in
practice, and by taking a trans-disciplinary perspective meant to
reverse the traditional lack of communication between normative
international theory and empirical international studies, it explores
how institutional practice ‘feeds back’ to the normative structure (Ramos
2013, 144; Acharya 2013, 466).

1.2 The Current Practice-Norm Gap

The idea of sovereignty as responsibility has been made popular by the
Responsibility to Protect (R2P) report (ICISS 2001). This was published
by the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty
(ICISS) in 2001, in the wake of the ‘ideational turn’ emphasizing the
capacity of norms to shape state behaviour. While the Commission was
formally an initiative of the Canadian government, its work had from
the beginning a quasi-official relationship with the UN (Brown 2013,
433). According to the document, sovereignty is not an absolute right of
governments. Instead, it is an earned right, based upon the fulfilment of
the government’s responsibility to protect its people. Hence, when
governments fail to protect their people, a residual responsibility to
protect befalls the international community. At the same time, in an
attempt to dispel the concerns raised by the earlier doctrine of
humanitarian intervention, the report has sought to ensure that such a
recharacterization of sovereignty does not entail any transfer or
dilution of state sovereignty (ICISS 2001, para 2.14), a claim whose
validity, as we shall see, is radically questioned in the following
chapters. The R2P report was published a few months after 9/11 when
the over-optimistic mood of the 1990s had already started its retreat
(Falk and Skinner 2016, 494). And yet, the 2005 World Summit resulted
in the formal acceptance of the notion of sovereignty as responsibility
by more than 150 states. By the time of this writing, the UNSC has
passed several tens of resolutions reminding states of their protection
responsibilities under R2P (Teitt 2017, 342). These culminated in UNSC
Resolution 1973, which authorized the 2011 intervention to protect
Libyan populations in the context of the civil war that had erupted in
the country. At the same time, however, R2P has not been immune from
critique and setbacks, especially outside the liberal internationalist
elite (Rotmann et al. 2014, 364; Carsten 2015, 14). In particular,
according to some observers, the version of R2P adopted in 2005 was
only ‘R2P Lite’ (Brown 2013, 434). They have noted that, while the
2001 report was ambiguous on the question of auctoritas (Peters 2009,
537), the World Summit made it clear that the international community
may only act through the Security Council. A further change concerned
the formulation of jurisdiction. In an attempt to limit what otherwise
seemed to be an open-ended authorization of international
involvement for protective purposes, feared by most countries of the
South (Orford 2009, 1005–1007), intervention was limited to specific
crimes and organized around the subject matter jurisdiction of
international criminal law, i.e. ‘genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing
and crimes against humanity’ (ibid.). It should also be noted that Russia
and China have sent mixed signals. On the one hand, they accepted the
wording of the 2005 World Summit and let Resolution 1973 pass in
2011; on the other, they are responsible for the Security Council’s later
paralysis over robust action in the Syrian crisis. Having said that, the
terms in which R2P was reformulated in 2005 still envisage a broad
role for the international community in policing governments’ actions
(ibid., 1007). What is more, even states originally more hostile to R2P
have themselves begun to expressly refer to it as the ‘norm’ (Bellamy
2015, 161–162). All things considered, lite or heavy, the notion of
sovereignty as responsibility is clearly the new ‘mantra’ within the UN
system (Brown 2013, 440; Korhonen and Selkä lä 2016, 850). As Chris
Brown has put it, R2P language has been mainstreamed in UN
discourse ‘to such an extent that it has driven out other vocabularies for
describing the appropriate ways of reacting to gross violations of
human rights or mass atrocity crimes’ (ibid.).
The debate around sovereignty as responsibility, hence, provides a
unique opportunity to glean a sense of international society’s present
status and future prospects in a way that raises direct and pressing
questions about the justification and waging of public authority. Such
an inquiry appears even more compelling in the face of some recent
geopolitical trends. The current climate is, in fact, caught between
cosmopolitan visions, on the one hand, and technocratic trends and
populist—when not clearly authoritarian—challenges, on the other.
Indeed, at a time when states have withdrawn, or are considering
withdrawing, from international institutions such as the European
Union and the ICC itself, a profound engagement with the concept of
sovereignty, its current status, and future prospects is particularly
needed.2
What is more, as anticipated at the onset of this introduction, the
need for such a study is heightened by the shortcomings in the
dominant understanding of norm development. Clinging to the seminal
model developed by Finnemore and Sikkink, it is popular to suggest
that the development of international social norms goes through three
stages: ‘norm emergence’, ‘norm cascade’, and ‘internalization’. ‘Norm
cascade’ can only occur after a critical mass of states have endorsed the
emergent norm (the ‘tipping point’), and it is often facilitated by the
‘institutionalization’ of the norm in specific sets of rules or
organizations. This model acknowledges that the completion of the life-
cycle is not an inevitable process. In other words, the norm life-cycle
can stop at any time, with emergent norms thus failing to reach a
tipping point. Yet, one can hardly discard the impression of an
inexorable ‘win or fail’ trajectory. Norms merely either go all the way
from emergence to internalization or not. Furthermore, the vantage
point is the moment of state consent (Liste 2017, 3). Accordingly, it is
common to hold that when an overwhelming number of states have
given their consent to an international norm (by ratifying a treaty, for
example), the content of that norm crystallizes, being thus ready to
promote norm cascade and internalization. However, no matter how
significant the ratification and entry into force of a treaty may be, these
cannot be assumed to equate to interpretation, implementation, or
compliance (Betts and Orchard 2014, 2). The latter, instead, all take
place ‘at a distance from the context in which the norm originated and
was negotiated’ (Welsh 2013, 380; Checkel 1999), and they are crucial
to observe as creative junctures where environmental and operational
conditions come forcefully into play. Not to mention that
institutionalization understood in its narrower sense amounts to a
form of depoliticization—the institutionalized norm enters the zone of
law, where it remains as long as states comply with it (Liste 2017, 4).
Institutionalization so conceived not only entails a deterministic
understanding of law which neglects that the interpretative powers of
legal professionals or civil servants may, in fact, be decisive in
determining what the law is; but, more to the point, it is functional to a
dichotomic view in which norms are scripts of emancipation and
power, at the opposite end of the spectrum, a practice of domination
(ibid.).
Summing up, norms are misconstrued as prefabricated scripts
(ibid., 2). Instead, they are part of ongoing social processes, and ‘tend to
be vague, enabling their content to be filled in many ways and thereby
to be appropriated for a variety of different purposes’ (Krook and True
2012, 104). To reference a norm, thus, may always add a moment of
‘reconstitution’ of its original but never fixed meaning (Wiener 2018,
35), all the more so during the everyday practice that brings norms to
life. This is precisely what mainstream norm research tends to
overlook, positing instead a linear, static, and largely depoliticized view
of norm content.

1.3 Redressing the Gap

In their article ‘From Idea to Norm—and Action?’, Ramesh Thakur and
Thomas Weiss have argued that the ‘ICC’s permanent, institutionalized
[emphasis mine] identity, and universal jurisdiction is specifically
designed to escape the tyranny of episodic and politically motivated
investigations and selective justice’ (Thakur and Weiss 2009, 44).
Similarly, in 2012, expressly clinging to Finnemore and Sikkink’s norm
life-cycle, Michael Contarino, Melinda Negró n-Gonzales, and Kevin
Mason argued that ‘[t]o the extent that ICC actions help to delineate and
define both the norm’s content and the appropriate international
mechanisms for its application, the ICC may help advance norm cascade
and consolidation’ (Contarino et al. 2012, 298) and ‘the ICC is well-
positioned to play a critical role, through its actions and jurisprudence,
in clarifying the meaning and boosting the enforcement of R2P’ (ibid.).
A year later, in 2013, Contarino and Negró n-Gonzales offered a more
critical reappraisal of the ICC’s potential, focusing on ‘the Court’s
inherent enforcement weaknesses and the political constraints it faces’
(Contarino and Negron-Gonzales 2013, 425). Nonetheless, they did not
take the further step of channelling that effort into a revised
understanding of norm development. In the same year, Kathryn Sikkink
and Hun Joon Kim argued that the ‘justice cascade is nested in a larger
norm cascade around accountability for past human rights violations’
(Sikkink and Kim 2013, 270), and ‘[m]any critics of the ICC or the
specialized courts have not understood the role of these courts as
backup institutions in a global system of accountability’ (ibid., 272).
Similar arguments have also been upheld by a broad array of
outstanding scholars (Birdsall 2007, 414–415; Falk 2002, 341; Hayden,
2004, 69; Leonard 2005, 43; Ralph 2007; Sadat 2000, 41).
Admittedly, in accordance with the voices above, the claim that the
Rome Statute opens up an unprecedented scope for international
authority is, in several respects, hard to rebut (Morris 2004, 187). In
defiance of the principle of domestic jurisdiction enshrined in the UN
Charter (Article 2.7),3 the Rome Statute affirms that if domestic courts
fail to genuinely prosecute those guilty of genocide, crimes against
humanity, or war crimes,4 the ICC will prosecute them in lieu of the
state itself. Importantly, no exception is contemplated for
representatives of state power, including heads of state or government
(Article 27), who, as Richard Falk has put it, ought no longer to be
above international law, not even in the way in which they treat their
own citizens (Falk, 341). What is more, although the ICC’s jurisdiction
arises from the delegation of jurisdiction by the states parties, the
scope of the latter is worthy of attention (Morris 2004, 188), having the
Court been empowered to carry out both autonomous and binding
decision-making (Alter 2008, 37; Scheipers 2010, 52; Zü rn et al. 2012,
88). In fact, the Prosecutor is formally able to investigate both
situations and cases without political direction. Furthermore, the Court
is the ultimate judge of whether a case is of sufficient gravity to warrant
the attention of the Court, and whether the territorial state has
genuinely exercised (or is genuinely exercising) jurisdiction over a case
(Article 17 of the Rome Statute). Accordingly, in a dispute over
jurisdiction between the territorial state and the ICC, the latter has the
authority to override the territorial state’s claims and seize jurisdiction.
In other words, ‘[w]here genocide, war crimes or crimes against
humanity are alleged, there is now to be an authority higher than the
state’ (Morris 2004, 188). Such supranational authority is further
enhanced by the Court’s jurisdiction over non-party nationals. Article
12(2) of the Rome Statute, in fact, allows the ICC to exercise jurisdiction
over nationals of non-party (i.e. non-consenting) states if the state
where the crime is alleged to have occurred is a state party (or has
consented to the Court’s jurisdiction).Moreover, the ICC can intervene
irrespective of any consent for cases referred by the UN Security
Council (Article 13(b)). A final consideration relates to Article 127, on
state withdrawal. Albeit state parties may withdraw from the Rome
Statute, the withdrawal takes effect one year after the date of receipt of
the notification. It follows from here that state withdrawal from the
Rome Statute does not affect any cooperation with the Court in
connection with investigations and proceedings initiated prior to the
date on which the withdrawal became effective; nor does withdrawal
from the Rome Statute prejudice the continued consideration of any
matter which was already under the attention of the Court prior to that
date. It may, hence, be argued that membership to the Rome Statute
implies sovereign costs (Raustiala 2003, 841–847), insofar as it entails
the generation of rules or decisions that states cannot veto ex post.
The common normative structure and commitments of ICC and R2P
are also clear, as acknowledged by a wide range of observers (Ainley
2015, 37; Bensouda 2012; Hehir and Lang 2015, 160; ICRtoP 2012,
Mills 2013, 340; Lucent and Contarino 2009 2018, 197–198; Ralph
2016, 638; Rastan 2009, 163). Indeed, as pointed out above, since 2005
there is even an express overlapping between the protective
jurisdiction of the international community under R2P and the Court’s
jurisdiction, meaning that R2P is meant to be triggered (only) by the
risk that the crimes enumerated in the Rome Statute may be committed
(Orford 2009, 1007). Add to this that the 2009 UN Secretary General’s
report on implementing R2P has further reinforced the R2P-ICC
synergy. The report has elaborated three pillars, with these stressing,
respectively, the state’s primary responsibility to protect its population,
the preventive commitment of the international community, and the
responsibility of the international community to react to a state’s
manifest failures. The same report has mentioned the ICC under pillar
three, in addition to pillar one (the Rome Statute being presented as a
key step in fulfilling the state’s primary responsibility to protect) (UN
Secretary General 2009).
Taking the commonalities between R2P and the ICC further, several
prominent commentators have deemed the Court well-equipped to
overcome the collective actor problem that hinders the implementation
of R2P more broadly. While the latter is contingent on a coincidence of
major powers’ interests, as Jason Ralph, among others, has noted
(Ralph 2016, 638), the nature of the ICC as a permanent judicial
institution entrusted with the residual responsibility to prosecute has
been celebrated as a crucial change of course (ibid.). In other words,
many have regarded the Court as apt to deliver concrete and impartial
action by putting ‘real people in real jails’, and discriminating among
the range of states according to legal criteria.
In light of all the above, the entry into force of the Rome Statute has
raised hope—more than any prior international regime—that the weak
and arbitrary nature of the ‘Hobbesian order established by the politics
of States’ (Sadat 2000, 41) had been left behind. However, today, nearly
two decades since its establishment, the path forward for the ICC has
proved much bumpier. Indeed, the blind spots and complicities of the
Court have become a popular topic, especially, even though not
exclusively, within legal scholarship (Branch 2011, 121; De Vos et al.
2015; Mégret 2001, 197; Schwö bel-Patel 2014). Critical questions
about the R2P/ICC relationship are also being raised from both legal
and International Relations (IR) perspectives, albeit with different
accents and concerns (Birdsall 2015, 72; Chandler, 2010, 7; Mégret
2012, 21; Schiff 2012,101; Snyder and Vinjamuri 2004, 5). And yet,
crucially, the attention for the Court’s arduous course decreases
dramatically as we move from the domain of empirical studies to
normative inquiries about the current status and prospects of
sovereignty. To put it differently, claims that the ICC represents the
cutting edge of normative change can be formulated precisely to the
extent they struggle—if not avoid altogether—to make sense of the
Court’s lived practice. Lamented by Allen Buchanan already in the early
2000s as a general predicament in normative international theory, such
a ‘lack of institutional focus’ (Buchanan 2004, 22)5 has its deepest roots
in the assertion of moral theorizing which purposely abstracts from the
particular and the limits of practice. Today, after 15 years, the same lack
of institutional focus is still a major source of slippage in the
sovereignty as responsibility debate. Indeed, within the latter, the
classical practice-norm gap has found a staunch ally and established
toolkit in the dominant positivist understanding of norm development,
and it is further fuelled by the official ‘anti-political’ framing of R2P—
expressly designed by its creators to avoid ‘the toxic politics of previous
approaches to interstate intervention’ (Brown 2013, 425). The overall
result is a dominant analytic template that avoids a critical question:
whether/under which conditions is it possible for sovereignty as
responsibility to be institutionalized and still retain a critical stance vis-
à -vis power.
What this book tries to do is to reverse this entire concoction
altogether. It moves from the assumption that the specific kind of moral
theorising that purposely abstracts from the particular and the limits of
practice is a privilege that only those in favoured positions of power can
enjoy light-heartedly. Hence, it challenges the standard tendency of
traditional normative political theory to separate ‘what ought to be’
from ‘what is’ in the world, by reconceptualizing norm development as
inextricably tied to the institutions that bring norms to life (Brunnée
and Toope 2006, 134).
However, it is important to highlight that such a theoretical move
does not stand in isolation, but is in line with a new, rising post-
positivist agenda critical of the practice-norm gap. In particular, so-
called ‘norm contestation’ is sparking growing interest, especially with
respect to the role of local actors—and hence cultural and institutional
diversity—in the co-constitution of global norms. Some change of
course is even noticeable within the more recent R2P literature.
Edward Luck has been one of the first R2P scholars to express doubts
as to the ‘certain, sequential, chronological, and unidirectional’ (Luck
2010, 110) conventional life-cycle—but the same scholar has also
reiterated that Finnemore and Sikkink’s life-cycle ‘succeeds admirably’
(ibid.) in simplifying complex processes. Jason Ralph, in an article
published in 2018, has invoked the rise of a ‘pragmatic constructivist
ethics’ (Ralph 2018, 173). Most recently, Aidan Hehir has expressly
sought to offer a post-positivist constructivist account of R2P in a book-
length treatment (Hehir 2019).
 This book builds on this momentum, while also charting its own
trajectory. In particular, research on norm contestation has been
originally interested especially in the relationships between global and
local norms (Fehl 2018). Accordingly, most of the emphasis has been
placed on issues of ‘cultural feedback’ and ‘cultural validity’ as opposed
to the ‘formal validity’ that emerges from institutionalization (Welsh
2013, 381–382.), or on how international norms are implemented
within domestic politics (Betts and Orchard 2014). Seeking to advance
the development of an increasingly ‘de-colonial’ constructivism
(Wiener 2020), the present exploration is explicitly centred on
‘questions of unequal power relations, injustice and legitimacy’ (ibid.).
Therefore, it specifically focuses on how interests and power—notably,
the relative power of relevant actors during norm negotiation and
implementation—reconstitute norms through institutional practice.
Furthermore, the effort of theoretical reconsideration covers the whole
set of questionable and in some respect contradicting foundations upon
which the sovereignty as responsibility debate is premised, including
the concept of sovereignty and the specific model of sovereignty
assumed as the benchmark for assessing change alongside the
understanding of norm development.
Summing up, the analysis unfolds from an unusual perspective—at
the intersection between normative international theory and the
politics of international criminal law. From there, it addresses two
major sequential questions: firstly, it asks how the overarching system
negotiated by states at the Rome Conference affects the selection of
situations and cases before the Court and their outcomes; secondly, it
explores how the selection of situations and cases and their outcomes,
in turn, ‘feed back’ to the norm of sovereignty institutionalized through
the Court’s practice. Hence, as a whole, it strives to provide a more
accurate understanding of normative change—and, notably, a better-
grounded picture of the current status of sovereignty and its prospects
—by carefully digging into under-explored areas of knowledge between
disciplines.
A final caveat needs to be addressed. While it may already sound
obvious at this point, the endeavour undertaken by this study is
different from a ‘truth-telling’ mission aimed at uncovering how
‘politics infiltrates the legal process’. The latter approach, in fact, would
reinforce precisely what this contribution intends to dispel—a
dichotomic view of ideas, norms, and law and institutions, on the one
hand, and power and interests, on the other. Rather, the ensuing
analysis delves into the conditions of possibility of sovereignty as
responsibility by addressing the mediations that occur in the process of
negotiating normative ‘ideals’ and their concrete manifestations
(Morris 2012, 51). With this in mind, institutionalization is brought
back to centre stage. Importantly, it is also assumed that legalization
(Abbott et al. 2000, 401)—as a particular form of institutionalization—
is no exception to the inevitable reconstitution of norms ‘through
interaction in a context’ (Wiener, 2007, 49). Legalization is, thus,
reconsidered in its dialectic relation with politicization. Accordingly, the
hope that the ICC would sublimate the political element of international
society into serene legal puzzle-solving is put aside (Mégret 2001, 210).
Instead, (international criminal) law is understood as a ‘process of
articulating political preferences into legal claims that cannot be
detached from the conditions of political contestation in which they are
made’ (Koskenniemi 2004, 198–199). It also follows that, contrary to
much research that quickly dismisses the role of state power and
interests, the present study looks at states as central actors that still
coordinate and legitimize the work of other bodies carrying out
governance functions (Sinclair 2015, 450). States, in other words, are
regarded as having a crucial impact, e.g. on questions of institutional
design as well as their practical outcomes (Rudolph 2017, 59–60),
including states that may appear sceptical or openly resistant to the
establishment of a given international institution (such as the USA vis-
à -vis the ICC) (ibid.). Judicial institutions are not immune,
notwithstanding the fact that justice is something that a wide array of
stakeholders is struggling and competing to define. Indeed, even once
established, international institutions—without exception for judicial
ones—necessarily operate within political restraints (Ginsburg 2014,
501). It could hardly be otherwise, for states carry the crucial function
of providing institutions with ongoing political and material support.
Finally, it is important to highlight that, as also noted by Finnemore and
Goldstein, a focus on power is inherently tied to the analysis of
inequality (Finnemore and Goldstein 2013, 14). Again, this may sound
obvious, but much IR has diverted attention from this (ibid.; Krisch
2005, 372), including—if not especially—the fact that international
law’s impulse to reform may be easily placed in the service of existing
inequalities (Koskenniemi, 2001; Pahuja 2011; Sinclair 2015, 447).
Therefore, while the standard tendency is to frame global governance in
the ambiguous terms of ‘authority’, which make power particularly
undecipherable and unaccountable (Lohne 2020, 54–55; Peters and
Schaffer 2013, 335), a basic part of the puzzle is to understand to what
degree the ICC, acclaimed as the most accomplished step towards
setting a ‘principle of legitimate difference’ as a Grundnorm for
international society (Buchanan 2004, 35; Peters 2009, 513–544;
Slaughter 2005, 247–50), really ‘upgrades the role of law in structuring
relations among participants in international life, thereby diminishing
the influence of unequal power, wealth, and capabilities’ (Falk 2002,
346). To this end, in the pages ahead, the experience of the ICC is
dissected by locating it within a political arena shaped by uneven
power relations, as well as by situating power within international
criminal justice and the Court itself.
1.4 The Structure of the Book
The book covers the full range of situations and cases brought before
the ICC up to the time of writing, i.e. end of 2020. The comprehensive
analysis of the Rome Statute, strategic and policy documents, as well as
statements and other public communications, issued by the Court’s
organs, in particular by the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP), and case law
has been complemented by field research carried out in various stages
between August 2016 and August 2019 mainly in the Netherlands.
Following what has been termed an ‘ethnographic turn within
international relations’ (Betts and Orchard 2014, 19), the fieldwork was
geared towards gaining a greater proximity to the Court’s everyday life,
and hence a deeper understanding that was potentially able to unsettle
prior findings. To this end, the fieldwork has encompassed the
attendance to a broad range of events—notably, the Court’s public
hearings, the 15th Annual Session of the Assembly of States Parties
(ASP),6 as well as workshops, seminars, exhibitions, etc. organized
either by the Court or other relevant bodies. Finally, I have also had the
opportunity to carry out conversations—held in the form of semi-
structured, in-depth interviews—with a number of privileged
commentators—either internal to the Court itself (e.g. Office of the
Prosecutor, judicial divisions, etc.), or in close proximity to it (e.g.
members of the ICC Defense Counsel, NGOs’representatives and
international criminal law practitioners).7
The ensuing analysis unfolds in three main parts. Chapter 2 aims to
reorientate the foundations on which the claim that sovereignty is
undergoing profound change hinges. These include the concept of
sovereignty and the model of sovereignty assumed as a benchmark for
assessing change, in addition to the understanding of norm
development. The central part develops the case of the ICC. Both the
analysis of the Rome Statute (Chap. 3) and the Court’s practice in its
first nearly 20 years of activity (Chap. 4) illustrate a full-blown short-
circuit: between the Court’s potential to hold power to account, on the
one hand, and the institution’s profound entanglement with the very
power it is meant to constrain, on the other. This short circuit, in turn,
ends up institutionalizing a norm of sovereignty that radically cuts
against the normative aspirations of sovereignty as responsibility. The
concluding chapter (Chap. 5) discusses the above-mentioned findings
in light of the theoretical framework laid out in Chap. 2, and, while
drawing special attention to questions of delegation to international
institutions, it advances a critical reconsideration of the idea of
sovereignty as responsibility itself.

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Footnotes
1 For a discussion about the differences between modernist and post-modernist
orientations within critical theory, see Price and Reus-Smit 1998, 261–262. Roughly
said, the two authors see modernist orientations as embracing a posture of ‘minimal
foundationalism’ (Hoffman 1991, 170). In other words, albeit modernist approaches
acknowledge the contingent nature of all knowledge, as well as the connection
between morality and power, they, nevertheless, hold that some criteria are needed
to distinguish plausible from implausible interpretations, and minimal
(consensually-based) ethical principles are required for meaningful emancipatory
political action. Post-modernist orientations, instead, reject all kinds of
foundationalism.

2 Similar considerations have inspired the 27th Annual SLS/BIICL Workshop on

Theory & International Law, ‘The Return of the ‘S’ Word: Sovereignty in
Contemporary International Law’, held on 16 May 2018 at the British Institute of
International and Comparative Law.
3 Article 2.7 of the UN Charter grants to states the right to exercise criminal
jurisdiction over acts within their jurisdiction.

4 At the end of 2017, the 16th Assembly of States Parties also activated the ICC
jurisdiction with respect to the crime of aggression, with effect from 17 July 2018, on
the basis of the definition and ratification process previously agreed at the Kampala
Review Conference in 2010. However, see Sect. 3.​2.​1 of Chap. 3, for some cursory
critical remarks about the limits of this achievement.

5 However, for an account of the limits of Buchanan’s approach, see Sutch (2012).

6 The 15th ASP was held at The Hague between 16 and 24 November 2016.

7 In order to protect the interviews from public exposure, all the interviews took
place under a confidentiality agreement.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022
E. Piccolo Koskimies, Norm Contestation, Sovereignty and (Ir)responsibility at the
International Criminal Court, Norm Research in International Relations
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85934-3_2

2. Sovereignty and the Life-Cycle of

Norms Revisited
Emanuela Piccolo Koskimies1
(1) University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

Emanuela Piccolo Koskimies

Email: emanuelapiccolo85@gmail.com

[S]overeign equality and inequality alike rest on the decisions of

states to recognize certain formal (in)equalities and then
participate in institutions that constitute and reproduce these
(in)equalities
—Donnelly (2006, 147)

2.1 Introduction
The claim that sovereignty is undergoing a major transformation hinges
on a set of questionable—and in some respect contradicting—
foundations. These are the results of an inadvertent collusion of
‘normativistic’ and ‘descriptivistic’ fallacies. To begin with, such an
argument has been greatly facilitated by the relatively recent ‘linguistic
turn’ in the social sciences (Bartelson 2006, 464; Bartelson 2008, 33).
This has enabled theorists to define sovereignty as a ‘bundle of rights,
duties, and competencies’ (Aalberts-Meeuwsen and Werner 2008, 131)
whose conceptual redefinition, hence, amounts to change tout court. At
the same time, though, there is a tendency to turn to the contested and
contingent nature of sovereignty on a selective basis. In other words,
the ‘new’ norm is framed as a ground-breaking departure from a de-
historicized and reified model of sovereign equality, i.e. Westphalian
sovereignty (Weiss and Hubert 2001, 11), thus forgetting that the
exercise of sovereignty is, in fact, typically subject to a normative order
dictating states’ evolving range of rights and responsibilities (Glanville
2013, 57; Weber and Biersteker 1996, 283). It goes without saying that
even more neglected is the intimate relationship between the
qualifications of and restrictions on sovereignty operating at any given
time and the existing international distributions of power. In addition,
the Westphalian model of sovereign equality is also the taken-for-
granted template for several critiques of sovereignty as responsibility.
These, for their part, by emphasizing the corrosive effects of
supranational authority on the society of sovereign equals, inspire
nostalgia for an order that may never have existed outside our
theoretical categorizations (Bartelson 2014, 261). Finally, the claim that
a new norm of sovereignty is on the rise is supported by an
understanding of norm development that goes back to the norm life-
cycle developed in 1998 by Martha Finnemore and Kathryn Sikkink
(Finnemore and Sikkink 1998, 887). Albeit commendable in several
respects, the model advanced by the two constructivist scholars yields
to an inexorable ‘win or fail’ trajectory that falls short of accounting for
the role that practice and especially institutions play in the
configuration of normativity. In summary, the sovereignty as
responsibility debate is premised on a combination of ‘normativistic’
and ‘descriptivistic’ flaws—about (i) the concept of sovereignty, (ii) the
model of sovereignty as an assumed benchmark for assessing change,
and (iii) the development of norms in international society—which this
chapter aims to re-orientate.

2.2 Sovereignty: Beyond the Norm/Fact

Incommensurability
To start with, I suggest that the concept of sovereignty does not sit
easily with either the normative legal or the pure fact approach (Kalmo
2010, 114; Kalmo and Skinner 2010, 4). Accordingly, the debate should
be reset from a purely normative understanding of sovereignty
(Badescu 2012, 26) to a reconceptualization receptive to the liminal
nature of the concept. Let it suffice for now to recall the paradoxical
possibility that precisely when illegality becomes extreme, then ‘it can
convert itself into a new standard of legality’ (Kalmo 2010, 114; see
also: Bartelson 2006, 468; Moses 2013, 113). Successful revolutionary
movements are a clear example of how sovereignty originates from a
‘founding transgression’, in that, as Frantz Fanon has put it (Fanon
2005), they negate the entirety of the law in order to institute a new
one (Chowdhury and Duvall 2004, 200). Hence, what this section
proposes is a shift towards the concomitant acknowledgement of the
normative and the factual side of sovereignty. The normative side
qualifies sovereignty as a socially constructed—and thus historically
grounded—claim to supreme ordering (or regulatory) power. Here,
‘supreme’ refers to the relative place on a scale. It connotes, in other
words, a relationship between a superior and a subordinate (Hart 1961,
106). At the same time, the normative side of sovereignty stands in
conjunction with a factual side. This pertains to two central features
that the definition of sovereignty as merely a discursive claim tends to
obfuscate. Firstly, claims to sovereignty do not arise in a political
vacuum; namely, their content necessarily stems from an existing
configuration of power. Secondly, any such claim raises the question of
the material capabilities on which the enforcement of the claim itself
depends (Keating 2003, 195).1 Summing up, any attempt to portray
sovereignty as either a discursive claim or an empirical attribute or
state of affairs will inevitably leave something important amiss, thereby
offering a distorted account. Instead, it is preferable to reset the
foundations of the debate on a more well-rounded understanding,
which, while remaining far from discarding the force of sociological
dynamics, also revives questions about the power through which the
content of any claim to sovereignty is both established and enforced.
Given the complexity of the issue, a set of caveats needs to be
addressed, and some further theoretical reasoning is necessary. Firstly,
it bears emphasising that reckoning with the factual reality of
sovereignty—alongside its normative dimension—shall by no means
amount to thinking of sovereignty in terms of ‘absolute power’. Rather,
to the extent that the factual side of sovereignty refers to the material
capabilities of an entity to enforce its claim to supreme ordering power,
it is also an essentially relative condition (Werner and De Wilde 2001,
301). As Michel Foucault has suggested in another context, it is a
mistake to conceive power merely as something that can be possessed,
or somehow contained. Instead, power is something that circulates
through networks, discourse, knowledge, attitudes, bodies, etc.
(Foucault 2004, 27–29; see also: Foucault 1980, 93; Vaughan-Williams
2009, 81). Perfectly epitomising this nature of power, sovereignty has
an inescapable relational or societal aspect (Aalberts 2012, 16–17).
This is attested by the fact that states’ internal sovereignty is a corollary
of states being recognized as sovereign by other states (Bartelson 2014,
259). In other words, the scope and meaning of sovereignty are ‘bound
up with the development of international law as a whole’ (Werner
2004, 156).2 It follows that sovereignty not only endows states with
certain rights and powers but also puts them under the obligation to
respect the rights of other states (ibid.). Under this light, sovereignty
may be appreciated as a political entity’s externally recognized right to
exercise certain rights to rule (ibid., 132; Kratochwil 2012, 143; Walker
2020a, b). As Neil Walker has eminently put it,

[i]f sovereignty sounds as an all-or-nothing assertion of

authority, then the initial sovereignty claim may beget an
incompatible counter claim. To take this a stage further, if every
level of government claims it is sovereign, then none truly is
(Walker 2020a, b).
Indeed, at a closer look, one can also hardly fail to notice that the
social recognition of a state as sovereign constitutes a particular
identity that is endowed with certain rights, even if their exercise is
constrained in practice (Weber and Biersteker 1996, 279). A number of
the world’s 190-odd states are, in fact, ‘problematic sovereigns in some
way’ (Finnemore and Goldstein 2013, 4). For instance, many states that
are universally recognized do not have effective domestic sovereignty.
While so-called ‘failed states’ are the extreme case (Krasner 2013b,
172; see also Koskenniemi 2010, 222), weak domestic sovereignty vis-
à -vis portions of the territory or certain policy areas or sectors of the
population is a common reality (Risse 2015 162). What is more, even
strong states face trade-offs in managing different aspects of
sovereignty, on one hand, and power, on the other hand (Solingen 2013,
128–129). In other words, maximizing sovereignty/autonomy does not
necessarily amount to maximizing power. By the same token,
Another random document with
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 The world has been cursed by sin. There is in it both the good and
the bad, both food and poison. God has placed us in the world that
we may as Christians, do the work which Elisha did in his day. When
we look about us, how many people we see who have been
poisoned. There are murderers, suicides, thieves, robbers, liars, all
these are acting in the way they act and live, because they have in
them poison. It is well for us to understand that we need not expect
in this world to find the good unmixed from the evil. Christ prayed
that God would not take His own out of the world, but that He would
keep them from the evil in the world, and we are taught in the prayer
called the Lord’s Prayer, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us
from evil.” As God’s children, we cannot mix with the children of this
world. We cannot allow the amusements of this world and its
allurements to lead us away from God and His Kingdom. We are in
the world, but not of it. We are but pilgrims, passing through, on the
way to the country of God, but all that we are and have are in this
world; just as all the herbs were thrown into the pot, but there is also
poison there. Is there any pleasure, without its tinge of pain? Is there
any hope without the presence of a cloud? Is there any expectation
without some kind of a disappointment? But Christ is our Elisha. The
poison in the pot can be removed and He will remove it for us. The
pleasures of the world may be rendered sweet and pure. The work of
this world can be raised to the highest dignity. The power of this
world may be turned to the highest good of all. We are not left
helpless and hopeless.

II. The temptations of the world are the fire under the pot.

The question of temptations is a very interesting one, for the

Christian. There are many who find their greatest trouble in
temptations. They are not able to distinguish a temptation from a sin,
and confusing them, they look upon themselves as very great
sinners, because they have very great temptations. This is a false
idea. A temptation is a trial. All temptations are not evil. There are
also temptations that lead us to noble action. God is not tempted of
evil, neither does He tempt to evil, but He does tempt us to the good,
and indeed, He permits Satan to ply us with temptations, and we by
overcoming these temptations may grow strong and pure.
Christ, the sinless man, was in the world, full of temptations, but
He overcame them. His temptations were genuine, they were sinful,
they would have proven destructive, but He overcame them and He
overcame them without sin.
It matters not what the temptation may be, however dark and
sinful, it is with you as to the result of that temptation in your life.
“Yield not to temptation,
For yielding is sin.”
It is the yielding that is sin. Resist the devil, and he will flee from
you. Make friends of him and he will live with you. He will become a
part of you, he will drag you down, he will work your destruction.
How often we realize that dark, sinful thoughts, pass through our
minds. They are sins like a black cloud, sweeping over the beautiful
landscape of the soul. Well, does this constitute sin? By no means. It
is only when these thoughts remain in the mind, when we harbor
them, when we become fond of them; this is what forms sin in the
soul. It is your work to expel them, to drive them out, to hate them.
Paul said, When I would do good evil is present with me. How true
this is with us today. Even in our holiest exercises, such as prayer,
praise, worship, sin is found lurking in our aspirations after God.
Selfishness enters our prayers, selfishness frequently inspires our
holiest hopes, selfishness poisons our love, doubt weakens our faith,
and so we find in our religion and its life, the element of sin. This is
the death in the pot.
So the whole Bible deals with the problem of sin. The plan of
salvation is simply the plan for removing sin from within and from
without us. The mission of Christ is to save the sinner from his sins.
Frequently Christians get the idea that salvation is to bring us at last
to Heaven; well, that is in a manner true, but remember that is the
last work of salvation, bringing us to Heaven. Salvation deals with
thousands of things in our lives here, before we are ready for
Heaven. And indeed we can never enter Heaven with sin in our
natures. Sin must be rooted out here in some manner. So we have
our Elisha, he can and does remove the death from the pot. He is
the bread of life, the water of life, in which there is no poison.
I beg you, therefore, to take this text with you. Ponder over its
deep meaning. Apply its truths to your own life, come to our Elisha
that He may remove the death from your pot. Try and understand the
deep meaning of your religion and that it is a rule of life for every-day
living. That it furnishes you with the wisdom and the power to
overcome all the sin within you and all the temptations without you.
Therefore watch and pray. Be diligent in season and out of season
and put your trust in your Elisha, and He will make all things work
together for your good. This is His promise.

The Reward of the Righteous.

“For ye are not as yet come to the rest and to the
inheritance which the Lord your God giveth you.”—Deut. 12:9.
A description of Paradise is always acceptable to the humble
believer. He is seeking the rest, the inheritance, which God has so
abundantly promised in His word. So our God has not omitted to give
us glimpses of this Heavenly rest. We have gathered together our
own sweet bundle of sentiments regarding it. They are ever a
blooming garden of flowers by our pathway. We are to so live that we
may daily prepare for this Home of the Soul. Hezekiah was ordered
to set his house in order. He was reminded that he would soon be
called to enter into this rest prepared for the people of God. He had
something to do first, however—to set his house in order.
We sadly realize that in the study of this deep question our
knowledge of that country which is our eternal home, can be but
faint. Paul saw something of its glory but would not undertake to
describe it. And the glowing descriptions which John gives us in his
Revelation, are most difficult to understand. They are figures, they
are poorly drawn pictures, outlines, photographs, of that Celestial
Clime and its Holy Inhabitants. But it confirms our hopes, invigorates
our strength, ennobles our efforts. Then let us study today something
and somewhat of this Happy Land.

I. The Character of the Reward, the Inheritance.

The Israelites were worn and weary, with the desert journey. For
forty years they had been wanderers, pilgrims, in a land of sand,
rocks, barren waste and mountains. God so blessed them that their
garments did not wear out, and He gave them water from the rocks
and food from Heaven and flesh from the far countries. But this was
not enough. They had been promised a land that flowed with milk
and honey, a land of rest, an inheritance. God had promised to
Abraham that He would give them the land of Canaan for a
possession, and that it should be inherited by all his children forever.
While this promise had been made centuries before their trials in the
Wilderness, yet God had not forgotten His pledge and His people
had not forgotten His promises. The great encouragement which
Moses always brought forward that their strength might be renewed,
was that God had made them a promise of a land of their own. With
all their trials and disappointments, their mistakes and their failures,
their doubts and perplexities, God was with them and the Land of
Canaan was just beyond the Jordan.
It is well for us to keep in mind the journey of the Israelites,
between the Red Sea and the Jordan; between the land of slavery
and the land of liberty. For indeed we are making just such a journey
now. We are on the march to our Heavenly Canaan. It is called a
rest. It is called an inheritance. What blessed descriptions these are!
We could want no better.
This wilderness of sin is a land of weariness. The way is hard, the
mountains to climb are high. The rocks which cut our feet are many.
The loads which we carry cause so often fainting, almost death.
There is no rest here. We have temporary resting places where we
may sleep and refresh ourselves. But the day comes, and its work,
its weariness. Even in our religious lives and work, we experience
the same fatigue, we are exhorted not to grow weary in well doing,
not to faint by the way, why? Because we are in a land of weariness,
of toil, of exhaustion!
“To him that overcometh, I will give a crown of life. To him that
overcometh, I will make a pillar in the temple of my God and they
shall go out no more.” Our abiding place there will be as permanent
as the pillars of the temple. We cannot be removed. Surely we will
not want to go out any more. We will be satisfied to dwell in the
temple of God forever. Then it is called an inheritance. Our children
inherit our possessions. There is no law to prevent them from
coming into what has belonged to us. It is their own when we leave it
by every right of human and Divine law.

II. Our Saviour is the faithful witness of this promised land.

Moses, you remember, sent spies into Canaan that they might
bring back a report of the land which God had promised to Abraham
and his descendants. These spies returned. Only two, Caleb and
Joshua, brought back a good report. The majority report was very
discouraging indeed, so much so, that the Israelites turned back
again.
There are many in this world who have a bad report of the
Promised Land which the text tells us, is to be our rest and our
inheritance. Will you listen to them? If so, you will also turn back and
continue wandering in the wilderness of sin. Do not forget that Satan
is one of these spies. He will tell you false things regarding your
religion, your brethren, your Saviour, your God and Heaven. This is
his business. He is always at it. You find many Christians who do not
think much about Heaven, they consider it a dream, they contend
that this is their Heaven, hence they place little value on all the
reports in the Bible concerning this land. But we have a true witness,
our Joshua, our Jesus. He came from that country. He knows its hills
and dells, its clime, its fruits, its joys, its eternal delights. He has left
us His report. It is absolutely true. He has seen and heard and tasted
and He speaks as a true witness. He said to His disciples on the eve
of His departure, “I go to prepare a place for you, that where I am,
there ye may be also. In my Father’s house are many mansions, if it
were not so I would have told you.” “If ye believe in God, believe also
in me.”
God liberated His people from Egypt. He raised the iron heel of
oppression from the necks of His people. He led them forth. He
brought them into Canaan. His omniscience guided them. His
omnipresence was ever with them. He brought them to an end of the
toil, labor, dust, pains, weariness of the wilderness journey. The
same God is leading us to a much better country. In this country
there are no enemies, as there were in Canaan. No battles will be
fought, no sickness will be endured, no trials to pass through, no
fading sunsets and following dark nights, no losses, no crosses, for
“All the former things are passed away, behold, I make all things
new.”
Jesus says, “I am the living bread of which if any man eat, he shall
nevermore hunger.” He has broken down the middle wall or partition,
so that we can enter into the very presence of God. Paul speaks of
His work when he says, “By whom also we have access by faith into
this grace wherein we stand and rejoice in the hope of the glory of
God.” Yes, the glory of God, that glory which shall be reflected from
our hearts and faces when we stand complete before God. John
says, “It doth not appear what we shall be, but we know that when
He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
And every one that hath this hope in him, purifieth himself even as
He is pure.” We shall be like Him! These are not misty descriptions
of our rest and inheritance! They are real photographs. We need not
doubt, we need not fear. It doth not appear what we shall be, but in
that beautiful habitation of the soul, we will be more beautiful than
the beautiful home which God has prepared.

III. But this rest and inheritance will be the reward of the faithful.

We should not deceive ourselves for not every one will enter.
There are many in this world who confidently expect to enter this
Heavenly Canaan, but they have no passport. If you were to take a
trip through Europe and Asia, it would be necessary for you to
procure from the proper officials of this country a passport, for
without this you would not be permitted to go through these
countries. You would be looked upon as some kind of an enemy. The
passports to Heaven are goodness and faithfulness. Not the
goodness, however, which this world creates and loves and prizes.
Christ said to the young nobleman who came to Him and wanted to
know what good thing he could do to enter the kingdom of Heaven,
“Why callest thou me good, there is none good but God.” This young
man said that he had kept all the commandments from his youth up,
now if he had done that and we have no reason to doubt it, for Christ
looked on him and loved him, then this young man was really good
as this world calls goodness; but mark you he did not enter the
“Kingdom of God,” for he went away very sorrowful, for he was very
rich. Oh! he was very rich!
He had his own little heaven, he had his own little bundle of
goodness, he had his own passport, but these did not suffice, for the
Kingdom of God. These were of no value in this Kingdom.
I was born in a slave state. When I was a little boy, my mother
being very poor, sent me out on a very cold day to the river bank to
gather up a bundle of wood. I gathered up the wood and tied it into a
bundle and placed it on my head. I started home. It was a large
bundle and grew very heavy as I walked along. It was painful to my
head and I became tired. I staggered under the burden, I thought
that I could not reach the house, but I kept on. At last I got home and
almost fainted. But what a relief it was to me and what a comfort it
became to my mother. As we sat that night by the crackling fire, I
thought, well it was worth all it cost me. The pleasure it gave my
mother, the family, and satisfaction it gave me to know that I had
done this and all were now enjoying it, was my reward, my rest. But
mark you, it was the reward of goodness and faithfulness. If I had
been a disobedient boy, would I have had that reward? Would I have
had that enjoyment? Would I have had the approval and the love of
my mother? Never, never! So it is with us today. We must carry our
burdens, and the burdens of others. We have always a double load
on our shoulders, this makes it doubly heavy. Sometimes we nearly
faint under it, the road seems to have no end, we are almost tempted
to throw down the load, but can we? If we really desire to enter that
beautiful city beyond the river of death, the load which God has
given us, must be carried to the very end. We can drop that load
when we come to the river, when the death angel tells us that it is
enough and that our Father wants us to come home.
You are to serve your brother-man, you are to love him, to pray for
him, and to love and pray for your enemies. This is the load, this is
the work that is to be done! Without the cross there is no crown,
without the weights there are no wings, without the prayers there will
be no praises! “Well done, good and faithful servant; thou hast been
faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things.
Enter thou into the joy of thy lord.” This is the welcome plaudit. Do
you long to hear that plaudit? Then be faithful today and tomorrow
and throughout life.

IV. This place is called rest.

After the victory there is peace. After the labor there is rest. After
the pain there is pleasure. This world is not our abiding place, our
peace-place. As long as man lives on the earth he has various
inducements to sin. Enemies within and without are continually
organizing against him. Satan is seeking to devour him with lust and
sin. He too often, alas! renounces his allegiance to his God, he
forgets his Saviour, he turns away from the practice of his religion.
Worldly pleasures allure him, they deceive him, they intoxicate. Ten
thousand are the ways of this world to lead the humble pilgrim
astray. The Israelites wandered in the Wilderness forty days, but it
was only a seven days march from Egypt to Canaan; Why did they
wander? Because they sinned. The flesh is lusting against the spirit
and the spirit against the flesh. When we would do good evil is
present with us. What a mighty conflict this life of wandering is!
But blessed be God there are no haunts of innocent (?)
amusement to entice you from pure holiness, in Heaven! No dens to
rob men and women of their virtue, no pit-falls of saloons and
gambling hells to lead astray the holy inhabitants of that land of rest,
none of these things are to be found there! The ungodly rich man,
the oppressor of the poor, the robber, the thief, these are all cast into
the lake where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched.
There is the place of our Eternal Rest. It is a mountain where
heavenly pastures grow and the rivers of life gently flow. It is here
that we shall know as we are known. Here ignorance is forever
banished and we see face to face. God help as to enter this rest and
to obtain this inheritance.

Our Legacy.
Peace I leave with you.—John 14:27.
Dear Brethren, in entering upon the work of this district two years
ago I found that the ship had sprung a leak, the sails were furled,
many of the crew had deserted the ship and left her to the mercy of
the waves. There seemed to be a heavy cloud over the church, her
banners had been trailing in the dust. I look back and almost
shudder and wonder what would have been the fate of the church
had things drifted on as I found them. I wonder if there were any
here who at that time would have believed our report and to whom
the arm of the Lord would have been revealed. I ask the question
now, shall the church in Trenton sink, shall her doors be closed, shall
her banner be dust covered? No, never, so long as God says “Thou
shalt live.” So like Paul at Athens I take courage and preach the
Gospel to you that your strength may increase and your faith grow
stronger.
Bro. Joseph Long was the first man I saw, to whom I delivered my
message. He said go ahead, my son, sound the trumpet and we will
rally to the standard though the host of hell surround us. I accepted
the situation, seeing that there was a great field of usefulness before
me. I saw and felt my inability to do any good or to be of any service
to the church unless God was with me. So I consecrated myself
anew to God and made a complete surrender. My own capabilities
united with yours, we brought our forces into line and began the
battle which you have fought so nobly and bravely against every
obstacle. You have been faithful soldiers, and may be called
veterans in the cause of Christ. The enemy has been many times
defeated and main victories have been won and the cause has been
greatly advanced, but the time of our separation is drawing nigh, our
communions will soon cease, they have been very sweet and
precious to me, very helpful, your kindness has been like the bud on
the tree continually swelling, and blossoming for my own pleasure
and profit. Like David, we have cried from the bottom of our hearts,
How long, O Lord, How long shall the wicked reign? Save thy
people, bless thine inheritance, feed and lift them up for ever. You
have proven your loyalty to the church at large, your efficiency in the
church here, I commend your integrity, your faithfulness. Your warm
hearts have beat continually for the success of the church during this
pastorate.
The old heroes have gone home to their reward. Their seats are
vacant, their work is complete but we have entered into their labors
and their memory is still precious among us. They are still with us in
spirit, they are looking down from the battlements of glory and are
witnessing our race here below. They have been described as a
cloud of witnesses. Therefore we are to lay aside every weight and
the sin that doth so easily beset us and run with patience the race
that is set before us. Their skill and bravery we should imitate, their
example we should copy, their life of service we should relieve. Oh!
Could many of those old warriors awake from their graves and revisit
old Mt. Zion and stand on her battleground, to tell us of the contests
through which they had passed and to show us the scars which they
had received while fighting the battle of the Lord, how often they
have witnessed the going and coming of ministers, having listened to
their sad farewells, I am sure that we would take courage today and
rejoice that we are a part of that grand procession, some of which
are now in glory, some of which are crossing and some of which are
still on this side. These old veterans of glory are not here to shake
our hands; they have risen from the bloody battlefield of earth to the
sun lit hills of eternity and have washed their robes and made them
white in the blood of the Lamb. Some that I met two years ago are
not here tonight to shake our hands, to be with us in this farewell
exercise, where are they? Where is father Crusen and Sister Layten,
Tolson, Phinley, Reley and Rachel Conover. Young men, I ask you
tonight where is Enoch Limehouse, Jimmie Vroom and others of your
companions? Parents and Sabbath School teachers, I ask you
where are the Scotts, the Sees and Lily Wright and others whom I
met here two years ago? They have gone down to the grave, they
are mouldering in their graves. But this shattered Mt. Zion church is
the same now as then, a few pillars are left. Brothers Long, Johnson,
Fisher, Jones, Ward, Ayers, Charna, Sisters Long, Ward, Perine,
Hall, Scroden, Hutchens, Lewis, Harriet, Charmer, and a host of
others, we have stood together through these years and are one
tonight in spirit and in truth. Our spirits have shared each other’s
burdens, each other’s sorrows, we have mingled our tears.
Your Christian advice, tender care, loyal friendship, all these have
helped me on my way to the better land. You have performed your
part well, a uniform desire to contribute to the harmony of all. Your
zeal for the growth of the church when it seemed to be dying, your
constant watching for its highest welfare, have often caused me to
say, “I was glad when they said to me, let us go into the house of the
Lord.” Although we separate here in sorrow we will meet in a place
where sorrow is unknown. Do you promise to meet me there? March
on, ye Soldiers of the Cross, be not afraid, God is your helper, He
will not desert you! Keep your eyes on the city whose builder and
maker is God. Do not grow weary in well-doing nor faint by the way.
Christ said, My peace I leave with you. I can say my blessings I
leave with you. Let us pray for each other and look forward to the
time when we shall meet to part no more. Farewell!
 Articles and Contributions

An Echo to the Manager’s Call.

Mr. Editor: In your issue of June 21, 1877, an article appears,
emanating from the business manager, indicating trouble ahead. He
says that from the very fact of the editor receiving two letters to his
one, and the supporters of our publishing department placing the
major portions of their communications on the wrong current, the
most pernicious effect is designed to flow through the stream of
intellectual knowledge gleaned from the columns of the Christian
Recorder.
I have only to ask my brethren, Can we, as pillars of the porch that
leads to the great temple of African Methodism, sit still on our easy
chair and hear such powerful peals of thunder ringing through our
ears, constantly coming from the subverting clouds now overhanging
our manager’s head?
Let us burst loose the bands of oppression, open the prison door
and set the captive free. Give the manager a fair start in the race,
and then if he die (as he says the death warrant has been served on
others who had charge of the concern), let us bury him in a
recreant’s grave. As to the department being whittled away by the
ministry, I would like to ask, Mr. Editor, who is responsible for that? Is
there not a prescribed mode of bringing these would-be men to
justice? These vipers that creep through the money till of all our
departments and from their atrocious dereliction or their villainous
designs to defraud the connection out of what is rightfully due it?
These things are actually undermining the foundation of our Church.
Put them between the upper and lower millstones and grind them as
fine as powder. Do not let us all suffer from the effect of the same
blow. The blow the Doctor struck has shocked the connection like a
mighty earthquake. Now the question goes from every loyal fort
along the line, “Who are these whittlers?” Again, the manager says
there is a wolf howling about the door of his sanctum, and that
unless there be sufficient food to satisfy his demands, at no distant
date there will be a burst up. I again ask, Cannot this eternal howling
be stopped?
Now, the manager says that our articles of commendation and
sweet pats on the shoulder, telling him to go ahead with the engine
without anything to propel it, does not amount to much. He wants
action—noble, sublime, Godlike action—such as will place him on
the road to success. Then, brethren, let us act. According to the
report made at the General Conference of 1872, we have three
hundred thousand members, seven thousand preachers in our
connection. Let a Sabbath be set apart and let it be universally
known throughout the Church, and one-fourth of a dollar be collected
from each member. This would give us the nice little sum of $75,000.
Say that the preachers give one dollar each, including bishops,
managers, editors and all others, which would make a total of
$82,000. Would not this stop the howling wolf and save the
department? The echo is, Yes! Then, brethren, let us awake from our
sleep. Call the forces to the front, wheel into line, fire on the enemy,
and the victory is ours. I will guarantee one-fourth of a dollar from
each one of my members, and not only one dollar from myself, but
five, at whatever time may be mentioned as a day for this purpose in
the interests of the Book Concern.
A. H. NEWTON.
Algiers, La., July, 1877.

The Race Problem Solved at Asbury Park.

For the Christian Recorder.
New Brunswick, N. J., August 2, 1890.
Mr. Editor.
 Sir: As a native of the “Old North State” myself, it is but natural that
I should feel some pride in every honor or mark of respect paid to
her honored sons; and yet, sir, when I see metropolitan papers,
whose politics are not very favorable to our race, teeming with praise
of the speeches made, with some very remarkable quotations of
opposition to the “Force Bill,” or apologizing for certain reasons why
it should not become a law; when I see certain gentlemen denied by
those in authority not especially committed to our side of public
questions regarding our interest, it is but natural that some of us
should become alarmed lest these honors are received and
bestowed at the terrible expense of compromising the rights of our
race.
We are forced to believe that President Grandison must have
committed himself with all the force of his eloquence on the beach at
the park to thirty thousand people in favor of the Force Bill. We are
also led to believe that our popular friend Dr. Sampson was very
conservative in his Fourth of July speech. But now comes out one of
the leading illustrated journals with all the pictures of these orators of
the Fourth at the park, and the Doctor is made to say if a colored
man is discriminated against or in any way persecuted in regard to
his rights, that it ought to stimulate him to greater effort to make
himself more worthy, and to not only make himself the equal, but the
superior of the other men. With other compromising remarks, and
after several highly pleasing speeches on the beach to the
multitudes from the hotels, it is said that the Doctor and founder,
Bradley, repaired to the dining rooms of the different hotels and told
the colored help when and where they might be allowed to bathe.
Was this arrangement made by the Doctor with Mr. Bradley for the
colored people? Will these two North Carolinians answer this
question? Were they paid one hundred dollars for these speeches,
and were they properly quoted in the New York World? I mean
President Grandison, of Bennett College, as to his views on the
Force Bill delivered at the park or elsewhere, and also Dr. Sampson
on the Race Problem, delivered on the grand stand on the Fourth of
July at the park. I understand that my old friend did say that a
Negro’s occupation should not be above that of a servant, for he
must know well how to discharge the duties belonging to this sphere
before he is able to meet the more responsible duties of life. I ask
the Doctor if this is all true.
Yours respectfully,
A. H. NEWTON.
31 French Street, New Brunswick, N. J.

Intemperance.
By Miss Ada A. Newton.
Intemperance is a fatal evil. What are felons, murderers and
thieves but men who began drinking but moderately, just for fashion
or to see how it tasted? From drinking moderately they go on taking
a little more each time, until finally they become confirmed
drunkards. How common it is to hear a wife say, Ah! He was a good
husband before he began drinking. There was nothing he thought
too good for me. How we pity the drunkard’s wife and children! The
little ones are made to suffer for the doings of their father, for God
says that “the iniquities of the fathers are visited upon the children
unto the third and fourth generation, while His mercy is shown unto
thousands that love Him and keep His commandments.” How
careful, then, should all be to guard against this evil. The cup that
has the glow of ruby at last biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an
adder.
Let us give an illustration that all may see the course of this sin.
Here is a rich man who has a son; he indulges him beyond measure;
he teaches him in youth to drink wine. At first he makes a wry face
and tells his father that he does not like it and cannot drink it. His
father scorns and ridicules the idea, and tells him that unless he
drinks some he will never become a man. So the little fellow drinks
because it is his father’s desire and not his own. He soon acquires a
thirst for the poisonous cup, and when he comes to manhood’s
estate he drinks often and freely. At last he drinks too much and
becomes intoxicated—yes, intoxicated! This is his first step to ruin;
the habit has been formed. His father is now much mortified. He
threatens to disinherit him if he does not stop drinking, but it is too
late. The father has laid the foundation and the son has built on it,
and neither of them is now able to undo what has been done and
fixed into a habit. His mother begs him to never again touch the
deadly drug. For her sake he promises and takes the pledge. There
is great rejoicing now. His father, mother, friends, all rejoice at the
reclamation; the son has reformed! Yes, he has reformed. His eyes
lose their redness and become bright and lustrous. He attends
diligently to his business. After a while he marries. Then the rejoicing
is universal. All delight at the great reformation. But alas! how frail is
human nature. Soon after his marriage he meets at the tavern his old
chums. He has perfect confidence in himself. He knows he will not
drink again. His pride asserts itself. His old companions are gleeful
and congenial; they ask him to drink. He pays no attention to them.
Then they sneer, they ridicule, they appeal to his manhood, they
accuse him of being tied to his wife’s apron strings. To prove to them
that he is not all that they declare, he takes one drink, then another
and another, and soon he is beastly drunk. Then they kick him out.
His wife watches for him, then she watches over him, and he does
not return, so it seems. He is now detained on business; he has an
engagement at the club, at the lodge. How little does she know how
soon she is to be bowed down and broken under grief! She watches.
It is midnight; she meets him at the door with a glad heart; the sight
is heart-sickening. She reels and faints. He is fearfully intoxicated!
When he is able to reason, she reasons with him, but in vain. Down,
down he goes from one step to another, until from a large mansion
he brings her to live in a cellar. Who is that grinning monster the
boys are pelting in the street? And who is that emaciated creature
entreating the boys to let the miserable wretch whom she calls her
husband go home? The once noble husband and the once beautiful
wife! What has brought them so low? What has caused her misery,
her anguish? Rum, rum, rum; nothing but the demon RUM!
Oh, young man, if you only knew the harm that the social glass
does you, the misery that it brings, the death that follows, you would
cast away the poison and turn from it now, before it is eternally to
late. “Touch not, taste not the unclean thing, for wine is a mocker and
strong drink is raging.”
Algiers, La.

From Arkansas.
For the Christian Recorder.
Mr. Editor: You have not heard from us for several months, not
because we have lost interest, for we have always stood among the
active workers of the Church, but we have been very busy. The last
time we wrote you from the South we were in the State of
Tennessee.
In the month of October last year Bishop Brown ordered us to
strike our tent and move to Arkansas. With the knapsack of faith and
the musket of truth we came and engaged in the contest, taking
charge of Little Rock.
The Little Rock Conference is composed of some of the noblest
and most energetic men in the Church. They work, sing and fight
against Satan like men of war, determined to conquer although they
die in the battle. Elder J. T. Jenifer, so well known throughout our
widespread connection as a pioneer of African Methodism, erected a
new church edifice at Little Rock, a monument that can never be
forgotten, and to be admired by unborn generations. Bishop Brown
and J. F. A. Sisson, P. E., contributed their share towards the
construction of this model of beauty. H. H. Petigrew, P. E., John A.
Jones, S. A. Patten and R. A. Sinquefield are the pioneers of African
Methodism in this State, and their labors have been given entirely to
the Christian Church. Their affectionate and kind-hearted spirits draw
every one near to them in the fullest confidence, and none can but
love and cherish them.
The Conference is divided into eleven districts and is cared for by
good and faithful presiding elders who are not afraid of the truth,
though dark and gloomy clouds oppose them on every hand. We
have several churches in course of construction in this State which
will be ornaments when completed.
In Little Rock the work is in a prosperous condition. We are
preparing to hold the Conference on the 9th of November, 1876.
Bishop T. M. Ward is now with us on his way to the South Arkansas
Conference. Our church is not yet completed, and we are about four
thousand dollars in debt; but, thank the Lord, we were successful in
paying off $1200 this year. We have 483 members, who say that
they are determined to succeed. We have 229 scholars in the
Sunday School and 25 officers and teachers. We have not done
much for the Recorder, but we intend to fall into line. “Hold the fort,
for we are coming!” (“Yes, but hurry up!”)
King Cotton has a powerful influence in this State, and the same is
true of another king—Alcohol. There are 113 rum shops in Pine Bluff
and 108 in Little Rock. Thousands of people are inquiring for the
byways to hell, and, comparatively speaking, very few are inquiring
the way to heaven. Over $1,000,000 are spent in this State annually
for rum and tobacco.
On September 25th we visited the Conference of Tennessee, held
in Pulaski, where we met many smiling faces and hearts and
enjoyed a hearty shake of many hands.
A. H. NEWTON.
Little Rock, Ark., October 18, 1876.

Algiers, La.
Algiers is situated on the north bank of the Mississippi River, about
one hundred miles distant from the Gulf. It is connected with New
Orleans by ferry boats, which run every five or ten minutes. There is
not much enterprise here, as all the business is done in the city. It is
not a separate parish from the city, as one mayor controls the affairs
of both places. Beelzebub has his headquarters here, and his court
and his orders take the premium. The Sabbath is not respected.
Mechanics labor and stevedores flock and flutter about the ships.
You will find human beings as thick on the ballroom floor on Sunday
as fleas on a dog’s head. And this is only a substitute for the
wickedness indulged in here on the Sabbath. But our Church is
progressing. We have just had a glorious revival. Our forces were
drawn up in line in pitched battle with the devil and artillery of hell.
After a heavy conflict for several weeks the battle subsided. When
the smoke was over we picked up thirty souls happily converted to
God. Bishop Ward was with us about eight weeks ago. He organized
a new mission work in this city. He threw two or three bombshells
against the forces of Catholicism, crippled, wounded and captured
several of their troops, and moved on down the line, leaving the boys
to push the battle to the gate.
A. H. NEWTON.
June 21, 1877.

Word from Algiers, La.

For the Christian Recorder.
Mr. Editor: Elder A. H. Newton has charge of the branch of African
Methodism of Algiers, La. When Elder Newton arrived in Algiers he
found the church in an almost hopeless condition, there being but
ten members belonging to the fold, and as far as Sabbath School
was concerned, they hardly knew what it meant. The majority of the
people of color are Catholics. There are three Catholic churches to
one Methodist church, therefore he had to labor under great
disadvantages, but with King Jesus as his Captain, the Bible as his
shield, he fought the battle bravely and gained the victory. Our
church now is in a prosperous condition. We are doing a good work.
Instead of ten members we have ten times ten, and they are coming
to the fold every day. We have the finest Sabbath School in the State
of Louisiana. There are one hundred and seventy-five members, and
still they come. Our superintendent, Prof. J. H. Corbin, is alive to our
Sabbath School. He is pious, kind and educated. The children all
love him, and in no Sunday School throughout our entire connection
could you find a better superintendent than he. He is also the
principal of the colored school of Algiers. Our musical director, Prof.
S. W. Otts, is also one of our bright stars. He makes the walls of Zion
ring with melodies from the “Gospel Songs.” Miss O. B. Flowers, the
assistant principal of the colored school of this city is also a noble
worker in our Sabbath School. As a teacher she is interesting, and
she is also the embodiment of Christian forbearance. We have a
very intelligent corps of teachers, and, altogether, our school is
progressing quite rapidly. When Elder Newton came to Algiers there
was not a book in the Sabbath School library, not even a Testament;
but with the help of God we have been enabled to get Testaments,
Bibles and Catechisms, and we also have an organ. All this has
been done in three months. In another three months we have hopes
of as much more being accomplished. Our agent for the Christian
Recorder is Mrs. Lula L. Newton. She sells as many papers as are
sent her, and could sell as many more if she had them. The people
take quite an interest in the paper, simply because it is edited and
published by our own color.
For the last week we have had a practical effort, six souls have
been added to our number and we have prospects of as many more.
Algiers bids fair of becoming one of the strongholds of the
connection. In the city of New Orleans, Bishop Ward (blessings on
his venerable head!) has organized a new mission, which the elder
in charge—Elder Cargile—with the help of the Lord and good
management, is making a good charge. The people in this city are
very wicked, some of them, although in a Christian land and among
Christian people, are worse than heathen. They have never read the
Bible. The Bishop, knowing this, organized the mission in the most
wicked portion of the city, and it is progressing finely.
ADA A. NEWTON.
April 4, 1877.

Word from Algiers, La.