NGOs, IOs, and the ICC: Diagnosing and framing darfur

Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have become influential forces in global society. They exert their influence in part by framing issues and thereby suggesting particular courses of action. This article examines how NGOs with distinct missions represent mass violence for the case of Darfur. Content analysis of reports, speeches, and other documents from Amnesty International, Doctors Without Borders, and Save Darfur reveals distinct patterns across organizations. In addition to the organizations' specialized fields, interventions by external actors such as the United Nations and the International Criminal Court affect NGO framing, but they do so in organization-specific ways. Against presumptions of a uniform Western position on Darfur, this analysis documents that depictions of violence by Western NGOs show field-specific patterns and distinct responses to international political and judicial interventions.