Policy Through Complementarity: The Atrocity Trial as Justice, in The International Criminal Court and Complementarity: From Theory to Practice (Carsten Stahn & Mohamed M. El Zeidy eds., 2011)

Policy Through Complementarity: The Atrocity Trial as Justice, in The International Criminal Court and Complementarity: From Theory to Practice (Carsten Stahn & Mohamed M. El Zeidy eds., 2011)

Description

This chapter examines the macro-architectural effects of complementarity upon the content, imagination, narrative and meaning of inter- and post-conflict transitional justice. The complementarity doctrine privileges the liberal criminal trial and its concomitant, sequestered incarceration, over other justice mechanisms. Accordingly, complementarity may encourage heterogeneity in terms of the number of institutions adjudicating international crimes, but it encourages homogeneity in terms of the process they follow and the nature of the punishment they mete out. Complementarity embeds the iconic status of the courtroom and the jailhouse as the best practice to promote justice in the aftermath of mass violence. This conceptualization of justice, rooted as it is in select individual guilt, serves important accountability goals. However, it may square poorly with the collective nature of atrocity and even clash with the expectations of local populations; moreover, it also protects state, organizational, corporate and bystander interests, while privileging the craft of the international criminal lawyer. In response, the author suggests that power relationships in international criminal law be revisited, both vertically and horizontally. More immediately, he urges a gentle and flexible interpretive understanding of complementarity – a light touch, so to speak.

ISBN

9781316134115

Publication Date

2011

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Disciplines

Courts | Criminal Law | Criminal Procedure | International Humanitarian Law | International Law | Law

Policy Through Complementarity: The Atrocity Trial as Justice, in The International Criminal Court and Complementarity: From Theory to Practice (Carsten Stahn & Mohamed M. El Zeidy eds., 2011)

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