The Therapeutic Dimension of Transitional Justice: Emotional Repair and Victim Satisfaction in International Trials and Truth Commissions

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 263-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Doak
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Therapeutic Potential ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Victim Satisfaction ◽  
Truth Finding ◽  
International Criminal Trials ◽  
Therapeutic Dimension

AbstractThis article examines the capacity of two major transitional justice mechanisms, international criminal trials and truth commissions, to provide a measure of emotional repair to the victims of some of humanity's most serious criminal acts. It is suggested that transitional justice processes often afford inadequate attention to the needs and rights of individual victims; but that four antecedents – account-making; truth-finding; justice and deliberative encounter may make some contribution to unlocking the therapeutic potential of these processes. While trials and truth commissions may both continue to play key roles in transitional settings, such processes should be conceived as individual elements of a more complex package of measures that should be put in place to propel peacemaking and healing at both individual and societal levels.

Towards Restorative Sentencing in International Criminal Trials

2009 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 809-832 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Henham
Keyword(s):  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Judicial Discretion ◽  
Discretionary Power ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Trial Outcomes ◽  
Trial Structure ◽  
International Criminal Trials

AbstractThis article considers how sentencing might be re-conceptualised if restorative justice became a more integral part of the rationale for international criminal trials. More specifically, it focuses on issues of admissibility and proof; trial structure; procedural justice; the role of victims and trial professionals, and the role of judicial discretionary power in sentencing decisions. The paper concludes by suggesting that change is possible by utilising judicial discretion as a force for developing more restorative trial outcomes and dealing effectively with inconsistency, appeal and the enforcement of sentences. More broadly, such changes should be seen as an opportunity for international trial outcomes to engage more directly with the challenges of facilitating transitional justice in post-conflict states.

scholarly journals Sham of the Moral Court? Testimony Sold as the Spoils of War

2012 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 73-101 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Findlay ◽  
Sylvia Ngane
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal ◽  
Truth Telling ◽  
Witness Testimony ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Judicial Decision Making ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
Empirical Truth ◽  
Judicial Determinations ◽  
Truth Finding ◽  
International Criminal Trials

This paper analyses the critical influences on witness-based truth-telling for judicial decision-making in the international criminal tribunals. The judicial fixation on witness testimony reflects the weight and legitimacy given to personal testimony before international courts. This weight must be balanced by the awareness that a witness may provide false testimony intentionally, or may be coaxed by third parties to provide such testimony, as has been evidenced recently before the ICC. If witness testimony is tainted then its capacity to endorse the truth-finding function of the court is compromised. As a consequence the ability to assert that the tribunal is a ‘moral court’ based on empirical truth in such circumstances is jeopardized. The nexus between witness testimony, truth, the morality of judicial determinations, and the legitimacy this affords is explored in what follows. We question whether simple assertions that witness testimony, tested through adversarial examination, produces truth and resultant morality, are all they seem. The analysis also critiques the forensic reality of witness testimony before the international tribunals. Ultimately the paper suggests that while truthful testimony is crucial if international criminal trials are to produce legitimate judicial determinations, the naïve claim to a moral court as a consequence of tested witness testimony is problematic at least and unsustainable at best.

Cooperation between truth commissions and the International Committee of the Red Cross

2006 ◽  
Vol 88 (862) ◽  
pp. 363-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toni Pfanner
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal ◽  
International Committee ◽  
Armed Conflicts ◽  
Truth Commissions ◽  
Red Cross ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commissions ◽  
International Criminal Trials

Starting with the usual functions of truth and reconciliation commissions, the article outlines the possibilities for and limits of cooperation by the ICRC with the varying types of commissions. The question as to the degree of such cooperation has mostly been resolved on similar lines to the privilege of non-disclosure in international criminal trials. Within the parameters of its principles of neutrality and impartiality and the operative rule of confidentiality established to enable access to victims of armed conflicts and internal violence, the ICRC has, however, cooperated with such commissions. The author explains some criteria determining the appropriate degree of cooperation and shows some forms it can take. He finally discusses the ICRC's policy vis-à-vis the amnesty provisions of truth and reconciliation commissions, which often preclude the prosecution of persons involved in offences committed during periods of violence.

Individuals Accused of International Crimes as Delegitimized Agents of Truth

2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 291-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mina Rauschenbach
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
The Past ◽  
Concept Of Truth ◽  
International Criminal Trials

The workings of international criminal trials situate themselves in an era where the concept of truth is heralded as a key aspect in the production of understandings of the past within transitional justice (TJ) settings. Yet, in such contexts where representations of the past are multilayered, trials tend to put to the fore certain narratives as legitimate readings, while excluding many others. This article explores the discourses of 18 individuals accused by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). It focuses on their role as generally delegitimized agents of truth and analyzes how they reconstruct their justice experience, focusing particularly on how they make sense of the judicial truths stemming from their case. It reveals how they reconstruct the ICTY as a hegemonic arena which produces judicial truths, which cannot be considered as legitimate and complete accounts of the past and which are at odds with their authoritative perspective of the “truth.” These findings are analyzed against the backdrop of increasing scholarly debates about the legitimacy, which can be attributed to perpetrators’ perspectives given the tendency, within TJ discourses and practices, to position international criminal justice as a universal and authoritative arbitrator of morality in conflict.

Transitional Justice, Truth and Reconciliation: An Under-Explored Relationship

2011 ◽  
Vol 11 (2) ◽  
pp. 241-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janine Natalya Clark
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Research ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Evidence Based ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation ◽  
Post Conflict ◽  
Truth And Reconciliation Commissions ◽  
Conflict Reconciliation

AbstractMuch of the literature on transitional justice suffers from a critical impact gap, which scholars are only now beginning to address. One particular manifestation of this aforementioned gap, and one which forms the particular focus of this article, is the frequently-cited yet empirically under-researched claim that "truth" fosters post-conflict reconciliation. Theoretically and empirically critiquing this argument, this article both questions the comprehensiveness of truth established through criminal trials and truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) and underscores the often overlooked problem of denial, thus raising fundamental questions about the reputed healing properties of truth in such contexts. Advocating the case for evidence-based transitional justice, it reflects upon empirical research on South Africa's TRC and the author's own work on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).

scholarly journals Trial and (Potential) Error: Conflicting Visions on Reparations Within the ICC System

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alina Balta ◽  
Manon Bax ◽  
Rianne Letschert
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Conflict Situations ◽  
International Criminal Trials

Twenty years ago, the International Criminal Court (hereinafter ICC or the Court) was established holding the aim of placing victims at the heart of international criminal justice proceedings and delivering justice to them through, among others, reparations. Article 75 of the Rome Statute lays out the reparations regime, and, in practice, court-ordered reparations are a means of delivering such justice. Focusing on Court decisions on reparations, our analysis takes stock of all developments before the ICC and attempts to highlight the mismatch between characteristics inherent to the objectives of international criminal trials such as providing accountability and punishment of the accused and delivering justice for victims of mass crimes—the so-called procedural challenges. We also submit that the Court is facing conceptual challenges, related to an apparent misunderstanding of the various concepts at stake: reparations as such and the various modalities and channels of enforcing them. We conclude that although the ICC’s reparation regime may not be the best reparative response to provide justice to victims in conflict situations affected by mass victimization, we suggest that improving the ICC’s approach includes, at a minimum, tackling these challenges.

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