Karen E. Woody, Putting Pandora on Trial, 98 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 699 (2008) (reviewing Mark A. Drumbl, Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law (2007))

Authors

Karen E. Woody, Washington and Lee University School of LawFollow

Document Type

Book Review

Publication Title

Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology

Publication Date

2008

Abstract

In the wake of increasing globalization over the past fifty years, international criminal law has transformed from a toothless shadow into a concrete reality; the International Criminal Court is the most recent and impressive institutional accomplishment. Unfortunately, international criminal law has enjoyed this progress on the heels of increasingly horrific international crimes. International adjudicatory institutions have taken many forms and the sentences they deliver have varied widely. In Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law, Mark Drumbl reviews the strides made in international criminal law from the Nuremberg trials through present-day trials, particularly those related to the crimes committed in Rwanda and Yugoslavia. In doing so, Drumbl offers one of the most comprehensive assessments of the role of punishment in international criminal law. In this Review, I detail Drumbl's primary themes and acknowledge the book's numerous and notable contributions to the field of international criminal law. I then argue that a natural extension of Drumbl's theory of cosmopolitan pluralism is the use of religious institutions as vehicles of rehabilitation and restoration for communities fractured by mass atrocity.

Recommended Citation

Karen E. Woody, Putting Pandora on Trial, 98 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 699 (2008) (reviewing Mark A. Drumbl, Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law (2007)).