History
and International Criminal Justice
ESIL
Interest Group on International Criminal Justice
ESIL
Interest Group on History of International Law
Online
Roundtable
Wednesday
23 June 2021, 3-5pm CEST
Within
the field of international criminal justice, appeals to history have been made
from multiple perspectives. There are, in fact, at least three ways in which
the relationship between history and international criminal justice has been
conceived. First, histories of international criminal justice have
sought to construct narrative accounts of the origins and trajectory of the
field. Such accounts range from evolutionary progress narratives of the field’s
institutional development to more critical perspectives that seek to disrupt
the field’s conventional assumptions and framings. A separate body of
literature – focused on international criminal justice in history – has
sought to surface the influence of international juridical practices on the
course of history within particular societal contexts. Studies within this
strand of scholarship have revealed, for example, how international criminal
justice institutions can become implicated in governmental projects within the
domestic political sphere, including the delegitimization of political rivals
or the legitimation of military campaigns against adversaries. Thirdly, growing
attention has also been directed towards international criminal courts as sites
of historical production. Focusing on the narrative and expressive functions of
international criminal courts, explorations of history in international
criminal justice have sought to reveal how history has been constructed and
contested by different actors participating in and/or impacted by international
criminal processes in different institutional contexts.
This
online roundtable aims to put into conversation four scholars who have recently
published monographs that engage in different ways with the relationship
between history and the practice of international criminal justice. Building on
insights from their research, the roundtable will examine this relationship
from a diversity of angles, including a critical exploration of what the
historical narratives constructed by international criminal courts reveal about
their emancipatory limits and potential, how law’s relationship to capital
might help make sense of corporate human rights and war crimes trials across
space and time, the extent to which emotionally-charged rights discourses and
anti-colonial histories shape conceptions of justice, and whether a
‘responsible history’ normative framework for international criminal courts is
possible.
Chair: Zinaida Miller,
Assistant Professor of International Law & Human Rights, School of
Diplomacy and International Relations, Seton Hall University
Speakers: M. Kamari Clarke, Distinguished
Professor of Criminology and Sociolegal Studies, The University of Toronto (and
UCLA - on leave)
(author
of Affective Justice: The International Criminal Court and the Pan-Africanist
Pushback (Duke University Press 2019) – available here)
Grietje Baars, Reader
in Law & Social Change, The City Law School, City, University of London
(author
of Law, Capitalism and the Corporation: A Radical Perspective on the Role of Law
in the Political Economy (Brill 2019/Haymarket 2020) – available here and here)
Aldo Zammit-Borda, Reader,
The City Law School, City, University of London (from August 2021)
(author of
Histories Written by International Criminal Courts and Tribunals: Developing a
Responsible History Framework (Springer 2020) – available here)
Barrie Sander,
Assistant Professor, Leiden University – Faculty of Governance and Global
Affairs
(author
of Doing Justice to History: Confronting the Past in International Criminal
Courts (OUP 2021) – available here)
Those interested in attending the online event should register
by sending an email to esiligicj@gmail.com providing your name, last name and institution, by
20 June 2021. A Zoom link will be circulated to those registered shortly
before the event.
