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7 - The Victim Deserving of Global Justice: Power, Caution, and Recovering Individuals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2010

By
Susan F. Hirsch
Edited by
Kamari Maxine Clarke  and
Mark Goodale
Kamari Maxine Clarke
Affiliation:
Yale University, Connecticut
Mark Goodale
Affiliation:
George Mason University, Virginia
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Summary

INTRODUCTION

Since the late 1990s, victims of mass atrocity have been led to believe that they can expect to be included to a greater extent than previously in international criminal prosecutions of those accused of harming them through genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes. Most notably, the new International Criminal Court (ICC), established by the Rome Statute in 1998, is mandated to address victims' interests in ways that go beyond previous responses to the world's gravest crimes, such as those undertaken through the ad hoc tribunals after the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia (International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia; ICTY) and Rwanda (International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda; ICTR). The ICC's approach to victims has been labeled “innovative,” and a New York Times Magazine cover story touted Luis Moreno-Ocampo, the ICC's first Chief Prosecutor, as a beacon of hope for victims in the Darfur region of Sudan and of other conflicts involving mass violence. In public presentations, the ICC Chief Prosecutor routinely includes pictures of victims (e.g., a maimed child lying in a hospital bed in northern Uganda) to make the point that certain individuals deserve justice from the global community. By drawing on such images, he and other supporters of the ICC highlight the significance of his decision to bring what he refers to as “global justice” into this particular conflict and also the assumption that the ICC is obligated and committed to delivering justice to victims.

Type
Chapter
Information
Mirrors of Justice
Law and Power in the Post-Cold War Era
 , pp. 149 - 170
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2009

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