國際性刑事司法之興起，首先是國際社會對於個別國家之失敗的直接反應。因爲國家失敗而行使宏觀犯罪，所以有必要經由國際社會之干涉－尤其經由聯合國及其安理會之干涉－而重建一定程度之正義與責任。然而，國家失敗不僅表現於犯罪行爲，國家失敗之所以導致國家犯罪，其重要條件之一在於司法失敗或獨立司法根本不存在。因此，國際刑法要解決的問題有三：首先當然要審理過去國家犯罪以及類似於國家犯罪之其他宏觀犯罪事件，爲此也必須不斷發展與調整自己所適用的罪名，同時要協助當地國建構一個名副其實的獨立司法，使當地社會日後可以自行辦理若干案件，並且藉著如此的辦案能力達到預防行使主權之統治者來犯罪的效果。國際性刑事法庭在進行此多方面目標之際，一方面強調裁判規範始終一致，但另一方面經由判例法而發展此規範。如此理論矛盾的現象，可以經由人權保護以及現代國家之治理性概念予以緩衝。

The rise of international criminal justice is foremost a reaction of the international community upon the calamities of state failure. Often, the committing of macro crimes due to state failure can only be solved through intervention by the international community, i.e. the United Nations and its security council. The primary aim of such an intervention is a restoration of justice and responsibility. However, the failure of sovereignty does not only show in the committing of atrocities, one of the most important conditions for such crimes to occur is the failure or the complete lack of an independent judiciary. Because of that, international criminal law has to solve three main problems: it has to judge upon past instances of state crime and other forms of macro crime; in order to do so, it has to relentlessly develop and adopt its own norms; at the same time, it has to aid states on the ground to built their own independent judiciary and thus empower these states to gain the ability of solving such instances on their own. One important aspect of this autonomous handling of state crime by respective societies is prevention of future crimes. By pursuing these different aims, internationalized criminal courts on one hand insist upon the fact, that norms governing state crimes are long standing and independent of state legislature, but on the other hand, they even use case law to further develop and adapt legal norms in order to sentence concrete criminal behavior. This paradox can be solved, when we utilize the notions of human rights protection and governmentality in the context of a modern state.