478 Between Yesterday and Tomorrow (1914– )[any] restrictions of movement,” Bashir cheerfully confi rmed in an inter-
view with a Western magazine. In December 2011, the judges at the Inter-
national Criminal Court became slightly bolder, issuing formal fi ndings of
noncooperation against Chad and Malawi— that is, of breach of the Rome
Statute— for failing to arrest Bashir on visits to those countries, and notify-
ing the UN Security Council of these defaults. In 2013, a second fi nding
was issued against Chad in the wake another visit by Bashir. Still, the
council took no action. Th e government of Malawi responded by threaten-
ing to withdraw from the International Criminal Court.
Th e AU policy of noncooperation with the International Criminal Court
resurfaced in 2011, aft er Col o nel Muammar Qaddafi , the leader of Libya,
was indicted for crimes against humanity committed while attempting to
suppress an insurgency. Th e AU Assembly stated that the indictment “seri-
ously complicates the eff orts aimed at fi nding a negotiated po liti cal solution
to the crisis in Libya.” It then resolved that member states not cooperate in
the execution of the warrant. Th is matter lost its relevance, however, with
Qaddafi ’s death in the course of the uprising.
Inching toward a Future
Th ese various developments of the early twenty- fi rst century provided fur-
ther evidence— as if it were needed— that the effi cacy of international law is
not something that can be taken for granted. It never has been. Th roughout
history, international law has been critically dependent on a general willing-
ness of governments to abide by it. Th is willingness has been explained (as
has been seen) in a wide variety of ways— as a command of natural law, as
international legislation by way of customary practice, as tacit or explicit
agreement, as a consequence of a common juridical conscience, as a func-
tion of self- restraint and due regard for the rights of others, as rational self-
interest on the part of actors, as a fear of sanctions that off ended parties
might infl ict, and doubtless many more besides. To some extent, interna-
tional law does not diff er so much from national law on this point. A na-
tional legal system, too, will be in eff ec tive if it does not have the support of
the population that it governs. Within nations, though, a general consensus
can generally be articulated more clearly than on the global scene, and a
dense network of institutional machinery— from police forces to courts, to