Double standards in international criminal law after the ‘Ukraine Moment’: Is the glass half full or half empty?

Two competing narratives about the state of international criminal law have coalesced after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Some observers applaud the International Criminal Court’s investigation in Ukraine, advocacy for an ad hoc aggression tribunal, and domestic trials before Ukrainian and foreign courts. Others point to the same initiatives to emphasise double standards, including Western states’ self-interested accountability policies, disproportionate attention to European victims, and continued impunity for Western violations of international law. Drawing on debates after the 2022 ‘Ukraine moment’ coupled with critiques from the post-2023 Gaza war, this chapter identifies six allegations of double standards in international criminal law before differentiating persuasive allegations of inconsistencies, directed primarily at some states, from inconsistent or unpersuasive critiques that, notably, target the International Criminal Court or promote ‘victimhood competition’. Embracing a post-colonial Eastern European perspective, this chapter argues that the post-2022 accountability landscape is better understood as a moment of opportunity than decline. However, with selective regional enforcement in international criminal law becoming the norm in an era of waning Western power and growing multipolarity, assessing double standards may require different benchmarks than the universalist assumptions that have hitherto dominated in commentary and scholarship.