Potential prosecution by the ICC encourages local authorities to improve their own judicial systems.  As an international court of ‘last resort’, the ICC’s very existence serves as a constant reminder of the failings of national and regional governments to effectively curtail crimes against humanity in all their forms. Therefore, the Court exerts a strong deterrent effect by implicitly challenging the adequacy of those governments whose judicial systems allow such crimes to be committed with impunity. Seeking to avoid such international embarrassment has itself been enough to motivate many countries to both join the ICC Assembly and aim to improve their own domestic judicial systems. A clear example of this direct effect was the Kenyan government’s judicial and electoral reforms that followed from the ICC’s indictments over the post-election violence in 2007 which made the judiciary and election commission constitutionally much more independent. [1]  [1] Kimenyi