Between Fact and Opinion: The Sui Generis Approach to Expert Witness Testimony in International Criminal Trials

It is a fundamental tenet of the law of evidence, spanning all jurisdictions, that witness testimony should ideally be delivered in open court by the individual who observed the event in question, or by the expert whose technical knowledge is relied upon. A notable exception to this principle has emerged in the field of international criminal justice, where courts and tribunals may allow ‘summarising witnesses’ to present a summation of witness testimony. In the case of Ayyash et al., the Special Tribunal for Lebanon extended the principle, allowing voluminous expert opinion evidence to be presented in factual summation. This article analyses such approaches, utilising doctrinal methods alongside empirical Wigmorean analysis, to assess the probity of these sui generis practices. The results are placed in legal and theoretical perspective, demonstrating that international courts and tribunals are departing from an overarching obligation to integrate international and domestic standards in respect of expert testimony.

From Neo-Kantianism to Durkheimian Sociology

The phenomenon of sacrifice was a major problem in nineteenth-century social thought about religion for a variety of reasons. These surfaced in a spectacular way in a German trial in which the most prominent Jewish philosopher of the century, the neo-Kantian Hermann Cohen, was asked to be an expert witness. The text he produced on the nature of Judaism was widely circulated and influential. It presents what can be taken as the neo-Kantian approach to understanding ritual. But it also reveals the ways in which neo-Kantianism avoided becoming relativistic social science. In this case, it came to the edge and stopped. Cohen’s account is compared to the similar, but ‘empirical’, account of the same material in Marcel Mauss and Henri Hubert, which completed the transition.

The role of reliable mining and construction analysis in adjudicating mining damage claims

The basis for recognising claims for mining damage to a structure should be a mining and construction analysis, carried out following a detailed visual inspection of the damage and the results of surface deformation measurements. It allows to establish a cause and effect relation between the activity of the mining company and the damage. Unfortunately, there are cases when such an analysis is omitted and the following scheme is used: "since there is damage and the object is located in a mining area, it is mining damage". The problem is illustrated by two court cases where the author acted as an expert witness. Both cases are examples of the so-called pseudo-mining damage and confirm the thesis that the mere image of damage without professional analysis of construction and mining factors may lead to wrong conclusions regarding the causes of the damage.

Valuers’ Perception of Expert Witnessing in Real Estate Litigation Practice in Ibadan, Oyo State

The study examined the valuers’ perception of expert witnessing in real estate litigation in Ibadan, Oyo State with the aim of improving professional practice. Primary data was collected from respondents 103 registered valuers (RSV) drawn using systematic random sampling technique from 158 financial members contained in the Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria (ESVARBON) directory. Data collected from 87 returned questionnaires were analysed using frequency, percentage distribution, mean scores and factor analysis. The result established that rent dispute was the commonest real estate litigation where Valuers as an expert witness had been involved. The result shows that expert witnesses in the study area were experienced professional valuers who could sufficiently guide decision making in real estate litigations and give objective and sound evidence. Also, the findings showed that there is no statistically significant variation between the professional qualification and their level of engagement in real estate litigation as the p>.05 level for respondents [F(2,76)=.067, p= .935] for ESV. This infers that the respondents’ involvement in litigation was not a function of professional qualification of the respondents. The study recommended that for efficient expert witnessing in real estate litigations, valuers need to understand the procedures of being an expert witness and develop sufficient knowledge in the area of expert witnessing.

10.02 Genomic HLA homozygosity is frequent in esophageal adenocarcinoma and related to low immunogenicity

BackgroundClassical human leukocyte antigen (HLA) class I molecules are expressed by most somatic cells and present peptides to cytotoxic T cells. The HLA-genotype of an individual contains up to six different HLA-I molecules and defines the repertoire of peptides that can be presented to cytotoxic T cells. Homozygosity for one or more HLA-loci could translate in a smaller repertoire of tumour neoantigens possibly presented to cytotoxic T cells in an individual and potentially predispose such individuals with a disadvantage to fight a nascent tumour.Material and MethodsHigh-resolution HLA-genotyping from germline normal DNA of 80 esophago-gastric adenocarcinoma (EGA) patients was performed with the NGS method by Illumina. Whole exome sequencing (WES) was performed on tumor tissue and normal peripheral blood cells (n=39). The data were processed, and non-synonymous mutations were called. The amount of potential high-affinity binders derived from 10 cancer testis antigens (CTAs) frequently expressed in EGA and non-synonymous mutations obtained from WES data were determined using an in-silico approach for MHC-binding (IEDB.org). RNA-extraction and gene expression profiling were performed using the NanoString technology.ResultsWe compared the frequency of HLA homozygosity in EGA patients to an HLA-matched reference population derived from a large cohort of bone marrow donors (n=7.615 out of 615.017 donors). We demonstrate that EGA patients are more likely to be homozygous for at least one HLA-I gene than the control population. In EGA patients, 35% of HLA-A, -B, and -C alleles were homozygous in comparison with 19% of HLA alleles among the HLA-matched general population. This difference corresponded to an odds ratio (OR) for homozygosity of 2.282 (95% confidence interval (CI) 1.442-3.615, p<0.001). The odds ratios for homozygosity at HLA-A (OR=1.885, CI=1.111-3.236, p<0.05), HLA-B (OR=3.045, CI=1.346-6.499, p<0.05) and HLA-C (OR=2.170, CI=1.445-3.579, p<0.05) were significantly different. We then aimed to estimate the influence of HLA-homozygosity in the context of tumour immune surveillance. Predictions by IEDB analysis resource tool indeed showed a reduced repertoire of high and moderate-affinity MHC-binders (both CTA-derived and mutation-derived peptides) in the homozygous cohort. Our findings demonstrate a reduced amount of potentially immunogenic peptides in EGA patients with HLA-homozygosity for at least one locus, which may result in impaired cancer immunosurveillance. In line with this observation, we also found increased levels of CTA expression in homozygous compared to heterozygous patients. After artificial modification of the genotype of homozygous patients to a heterozygous genotype, the set of predicted good-binding peptides was comparable to the heterozygous cohort.ConclusionOur results highlight the effect of HLA-I homozygosity on the immunopeptidome as important prerequisite of anti-tumor immunity. The high frequency of genomic HLA-I homozygosity observed in the EGA cohort may reflect an increased cancer risk for these patients. Together with previous reports demonstrating reduced survival after checkpoint therapy, our study suggests consideration of germ-line HLA-homozygosity for the design and interpretation of immunotherapeutic trials.Disclosure InformationM.A. Garcia-Marquez: None. M. Thelen: None. E. Bauer: None. K. Wennhold: None. J. Lehmann: None. D. Keller: None. B. Gathof: None. L. Maas: None. J. George: None. C. Bruns: None. A. Quaas: None. M. von Bergwelt-Baildon: C. Other Research Support (supplies, equipment, receipt of drugs or other in-kind support); Modest; Astellas, Roche, MSD. D. Speakers Bureau/Honoraria (speakers bureau, symposia, and expert witness); Modest; BMS. M. Peifer: None. H.A. Schlößer: B. Research Grant (principal investigator, collaborator or consultant and pending grants as well as grants already received); Significant; Astra Zeneca. D. Speakers Bureau/Honoraria (speakers bureau, symposia, and expert witness); Modest; BMS.

The Role of the Expert Witness

This chapter maps out the scope of the epistemic authority of expert witnesses as interpreters and explainers of evidence and uncertainties that fall within their expertise. They argue that experts should only testify about questions of fact and ought not to express their opinions on questions of law and other ultimate adjudicative issues such as the probability of a hypothesis given the evidence. Rather, experts should facilitate the factfinder’s assessment of how strongly the evidence supports the underlying hypothesis, given all the uncertainties involved. In this chapter, our focus will be on the part where the expert is replaceable (not on first-hand observations). Further, the chapter examines how this role should be understood and constrained.