War Criminals on Trial

An Inside View of the International Criminal Justice System
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-041-01702-8
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 190 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Transitional Justice

This book critically examines the practice of international criminal justice based on the experience of war criminals who have been tried for their crimes.

Presenting the perspectives of those commonly referred to as ‘genocidaires’, ‘war criminals’ or ‘criminals against humanity’, this book presents their experience of international criminal justice, and its impact on them. By presenting their points of view and their feelings about justice, it becomes possible to describe the way in which this branch of justice is apprehended by the perpetrators of mass crimes, to produce testimony about the lived penal experience, and to analyse the functioning of this institution through a new prism: that of the persons standing trial. From this perspective, a new analysis of international justice is produced: one that reveals its aporias, as it demonstrates the difficulties international criminal justice faces insofar as the justifications that support it are not all confirmed, and as some of the expectations placed on it are shown to be difficult to reach, if not clearly unattainable. Based on over 60 interviews, carried out over a period of twelve years, with persons tried by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, this book offers a unique analysis of the working of international criminal justice.
This interdisciplinary book will appeal to those with relevant interests in law, criminology, sociology and criminology.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Scalia, Damien

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Gewalt Völkermord, Ethnische Säuberung, Kriegsverbrechen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtliche Themen Genozid und ethnische Säuberung
• Rechtswissenschaften Internationales Recht und Europarecht Internationales Recht

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction

Part I. Meeting People Tried for Mass Crimes

Chapter 1: Introducing a Singular Research Study

Chapter 2. Expectations of International Criminal Justice

Part II. Living the Penal Experience

Chapter 3: Shared Values and Disappointments

Chapter 4: Legal Narrative as the Only Valid Narrative

Part III. Continuing the War in the Courtroom

Chapter 5: Ruling Politics Out of Order

Chapter 6: The Scapegoating Rhetoric

Part IV. Respondents’ Words in Response to the Belief in Justice

Chapter 7. Why Does Belief in International Criminal Justice Persist?

Chapter 8. The Value and Validity of Respondents’ Words

Conclusion: Despicable Subjects as Sources of Justice?

Über Autor(innen)

Damien Scalia is Professor in criminal law at the Université libre de Bruxelles, and invited Professor in international criminal law at the Université de Lausanne. After completing his PhD in (international) criminal law, he conducted post-doctoral research at the Columbia Law School (New York, USA), at the Irish Center for Human Rights in Galway (Ireland), at the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict (Oxford University, UK) and at the Geneva Academy (Switzerland). He is co-founder and co-director of the Centre de recherche sur l’expérience de guerre.