Locating agency in normative change: Bohuslav Ečer, the UNWCC, and individual criminal responsibility for aggression

Abstract Existing accounts of normative change in international politics place undue focus on powerful actors as norm entrepreneurs and the organizational platforms that facilitate their advocacy. This can obscure the ideational innovation that precedes advocacy, biasing analysis towards structural incentives, rather than agency. To rebalance such accounts, we offer an agentive model of ideational innovation that treats norm entrepreneurship as a process, rather than locating it in a single actor. By bridging IR and history of political thought, our model helps trace the origins of normative ideas, development, and influence forensically. We illustrate its benefits with multi-archival research (conducted in the US, UK, and Czechia) into Bohuslav Ečer, Czechoslovakia’s representative at the 1943–1948 UN War Crimes Commission. Employing process tracing methods on new evidence, we show how Ečer synthesized multiple influences into an innovative proposal for holding individuals criminally responsible for aggression. Using original archival documents, we show how his ideas swayed key US policymakers via unlikely channels and helped shape a pivotal international norm codified in the 1945 Nuremberg Charter. Appreciation of Ečer’s agency alongside other key innovators contributes to our understanding of a pivotal norm, helps remedy biases in knowledge production, and enriches our theoretical understanding of normative change.