REMINDER: ONLINE ROUNDTABLE: History and International Criminal Justice (ESIL Interest Group on International Criminal Justice - ESIL Interest Group on History of International Law, 23 JUNE 2021)

 

 

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.

ONLINE ROUNDTABLE: History and International Criminal Justice (ESIL Interest Group on International Criminal Justice - ESIL Interest Group on History of International Law, 23 JUNE 2021)

 

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.

BOOK LAUNCH: Frédéric MÉGRET & Immi TALLGREN (eds.), The Dawn of a Discipline. International Criminal Justice and Its Early Exponents (Helsinki: Erik Castrén Institute, 26 APR 2021, ONLINE)

(image source: Helsinki)

Event abstract:

Welcome to the book launch of 'The Dawn of a Discipline – International Criminal Justice and Its Early Exponents' (Cambridge University Press, 2020) edited by Fréderic Mégret and Immi Tallgren on Monday, 26 April 2021, at 4-5.30 pm. Focusing principally on the inter-war years up to Nuremberg, this book examines the intellectual contribution of a dozen figures in the early development of international criminal justice. The book not only provides an in-depth study of these leading figures, but also contextualizes international criminal justice in its various intellectual stages addressing the diversity of ideas and questioning its hegemonic (white) male narrative. The presentation will bring together the contributors of the book who will discuss the  relevance of the respective authors, how their writings might help us interrogate the present moment of international criminal justice and what concepts have passed the test of time.

This book was earlier announced on this blog.

Register here.

BOOK: Frédéric MÉGRET and Immi TALLGREN, eds., The Dawn of a Discipline International Criminal Justice and Its Early Exponents (Cambridge, 2020). ISBN 9781108488181, £ 110.00

(Source: CUP)

Cambridge University Press is publishing a new edited collection on key figures in the early history of international criminal justice.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The history of international criminal justice is often recounted as a series of institutional innovations. But international criminal justice is also the product of intellectual developments made in its infancy. This book examines the contributions of a dozen key figures in the early phase of international criminal justice, focusing principally on the inter-war years up to Nuremberg. Where did these figures come from, what did they have in common, and what is left of their legacy? What did they leave out? How was international criminal justice framed by the concerns of their epoch and what intuitions have passed the test of time? What does it mean to reimagine international criminal justice as emanating from individual intellectual narratives? In interrogating this past in all its complexity one does not only do justice to it; one can recover a sense of the manifold trajectories that international criminal justice could have taken.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Frédéric Mégret, McGill University, Montréal

Frédéric Mégret is a Professor and Dawson Scholar at the Faculty of Law, McGill University. From 2006 to 2016 he held the Canada Research Chair on the Law of Human Rights and Legal Pluralism. His research focuses on the theory and history of international criminal justice.

Immi Tallgren, University of Helsinki

Immi Tallgren is a Docent (Adjunct Professor) of International Law, University of Helsinki and a Senior Researcher at the Erik Castrén Institute. She has worked as a diplomat, legal advisor in international organisations, and researcher, e.g., at the MPI Luxembourg and LSE. She currently studies the history of international law and gender, international criminal justice, law and cinema.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword Martti Koskenniemi
1. Introduction Frédéric Mégret and Immi Tallgren
2. Hugh Bellot Daniel Segesser
3. Vespasian V. Pella Andrei Mamolea
4. Emil Rappaport Patrycja Grzebyk
5. Quintiliano Saldaña Ignacio de la Rasilla del Moral
6. Henri Donnedieu de Vabres Frédéric Mégret
7. Hans Kelsen Monica Garcia-Salmones Rovira
8. Bert Röling Jan Klabbers
9. Radhabinod Pal Rohini Sen and Rashmi Raman
10. Aron Trainin Gleb Bogush
11. Raphael Lemkin Vesselin Popovski
12. Stefan Glaser Karolina Wierczyńska and Grzegorz Wierczynski
13. Yokota Kisaburo Matthias Zachmann
14. Jean Graven Damien Scalia
15. Absent or invisible? 'Women' intellectuals and professionals at the dawn of a discipline Immi Tallgren.

More info here

(source: ESCLH Blog)

BOOK: Francine HIRSCH, Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg - A New History of the International Military Tribunal after World War II (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). ISBN 9780199377930, £26.99

(Source: OUP)

OUP is publishing a book offering a Soviet perspective to the Nuremberg trials.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Organized in the immediate aftermath of World War II to try the former Nazi leaders for war crimes, the Nuremberg trials, known as the International Military Tribunal (IMT), paved the way for global conversations about genocide, justice, and human rights that continue to this day. As Francine Hirsch reveals in this immersive new history of the trials, a central piece of the story has been routinely omitted from standard accounts: the critical role that the Soviet Union played in making Nuremberg happen in the first place. Hirschs book reveals how the Soviets shaped the trials—only to be written out of their story as Western allies became bitter Cold War rivals.

Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg offers the first full picture of the war trials, illuminating the many ironies brought to bear as the Soviets did their part to bring the Nazis to justice. Everyone knew that Stalin had originally allied with Hitler before the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 hung heavy over the courtroom, as did the suspicion among the Western prosecutors and judges that the Soviets had falsified evidence in an attempt to pin one of their own war crimes, the Katyn massacre of Polish officers, on the Nazis. It did not help that key members of the Soviet delegation, including the Soviet judge and chief prosecutor, had played critical roles in Stalin's infamous show trials of the 1930s. For the lead American prosecutor Robert H. Jackson and his colleagues, Soviet participation in the Nuremberg Trials undermined their overall credibility and possibly even the moral righteousness of the Allied victory.

Yet Soviet jurists had been the first to conceive of a legal framework that treated war as an international crime. Without it, the IMT would have had no basis for judgment. The Soviets had borne the brunt of the fighting against Germany—enduring the horrors of the Nazi occupation and experiencing almost unimaginable human losses and devastation. There would be no denying their place on the tribunal, nor their determination to make the most of it. Once the trials were set in motion, however, little went as the Soviets had planned. Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg shows how Stalin's efforts to direct the Soviet delegation and to steer the trials from afar backfired, and how Soviet war crimes became exposed in open court.

Hirsch's book offers readers both a front-row seat in the courtroom and a behind-the-scenes look at the meetings in which the prosecutors shared secrets and forged alliances. It reveals the shifting relationships among the four countries of the prosecution (the U.S., Great Britain, France, and the USSR), uncovering how and why the Palace of Justice in Nuremberg became a Cold War battleground. In the process Soviet Justice at Nuremberg offers a new understanding of the trials and a fresh perspective on the post-war movement for human rights.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Francine Hirsch is Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the author of Empire of Nations.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: The Untold Story
Part I: The Road to Nuremberg
Chapter One: When War Became a Crime
Chapter Two: But What Is Justice?
Chapter Three: Countdown to Indictment
Chapter Four: Ready or Not
Part II: The Prosecution's Case
Chapter Five: The Trial Begins
Chapter Six: Stuck on the Sidelines
Chapter Seven: Course Corrections
Chapter Eight: Bearing Witness
Part III: The Defense Case
Chapter Nine: The Cold War Comes to Nuremberg
Chapter Ten: In the Name of a Fair Trial
Chapter Eleven: Accusations and Counter-Accusations
Chapter Twelve: The Katyn Showdown
Part IV: Last Words and Judgments
Chapter Thirteen: Collective Guilt and the Fate of Postwar Europe
Chapter Fourteen: Judgment
Chapter Fifteen: Beyond Nuremberg
Acknowledgements
Endnotes
Research Note
Notes and Sources
Bibliographical Notes and Suggestions for Further Reading
Index

More info here

(source: ESCLH Blog)

SYMPOSIUM: Hersch Lauterpacht and Otto Wächter: two law students at the University of Vienna (Vienna, 6 DEC 2019)

(image source: University of Vienna)

Event abstract:

In 1919, two men enrolled at the University of Vienna’s Faculty of Law and later went on to pursue very different careers. Hersch Lauterpacht became one of the most eminent scholars of international law in the 20th century, holding the famous Whewell Chair at the University of Cambridge and being a member of the International Law Commission and Judge at the International Court of Justice. Otto Wächter, on the other hand, rose to the upper ranks of the Nazi party. Wächter was involved as an illegal Nazi in the 1934 assassination of Dollfuss in Vienna, later became Governor of Krakow and then Lemberg, and went on to become a commander in the Waffen-SS Division Galicia. In Lemberg, Lauterpacht’s town of origin, Wächter was responsible for the administration of the Holocaust, in which large parts of Lauterpacht’s family perished. Lauterpacht was a prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, while Wächter was indicted for international crimes. However, Wächter died in 1949 while on the run. The keynote speech by Philippe Sands will juxtapose these different life paths, based on his book East-West Street and his new project The Ratline.

On the speaker:

Philippe Sands QC is Professor of Law at University College London and a practising barrister at Matrix Chambers. He appears as counsel before the ICJ and ICC and sits as an arbitrator at ICSID, the PCA and the CAS. He is author of Lawless World (2005) and Torture Team (2008) and several academic books on international law, and has contributed to the New York Review of Books, Vanity Fair, the Financial Times and The Guardian. East West Street: On the Origins of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide (2016) won the 2016 Baillie Gifford (formerly Samuel Johnson) Prize, the 2017 British Book Awards Non-Fiction Book of the Year, and the 2018 Prix Montaigne. The sequel, The Ratline, will be published in 2020 and is also the subject of a BBC podcast. Sands is President of English PEN and a member of the Board of the Hay Festival. 

 The event takes place from 18:00 to 21:00. Register with rechtsgeschichte@univie.ac.at.

CALL FOR PAPERS: “Hidden Figures”: The United Nations War Crimes Commission and the Codification of the international criminal Law (Ludwigsburg, 20-21 February 2020) (DEADLINE: 30 November 2019)

(Source: Hsozkult)

Via Hsozkult, We learned of a call for papers for junior researchers on the impact of the UNWCC (created during World War II) on the Codification of the international criminal law.

““Crimes against peace” and “crimes against humanity” are undoubtfully two elements of a crime which have acquired enormous resonance in the legal and moral discussions in the aftermath of the WWII. They are often connected to the International Military Tribunal and the person of the American chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, Robert Jackson, who also was the head of the American delegation to the London Conference. It is frequently overlooked, that the way for the London Charter was paved by the United Nations War Crimes Commission (UNWCC). The UNWCC was established in October 1943 by seventeen of the Allied nations, including the European occupied countries like France and Poland but also New Zeeland and China, the only Non-Western independent nation. Its main function was to formulate and implement general measures for trial and punishment of alleged Axis war criminals. […]”

The full call can be found on Hsozkult

(source: ESCLH Blog)

BOOK: Morten BERGSMO & Emiliano J. BUIS (eds.), Philosophical Foundations of International Criminal Law: Correlating Thinkers (Brussels: TOAEP, 2018), ISBN 978-82-8348-117-4; OPEN ACCESS

(Source: Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher)

We learned of the online publication of an open access book on philosophical foundations of international criminal law.

ABOUT

The 'Publication Series' is the oldest publication series of the Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher (TOAEP). Prior to volume No. 30, it was called 'FICHL Publication Series'. Several books in this series originate in academic seminars organised by CILRAP. Unsolicited texts are subjected to peer review. The printed versions of the books are distributed through the normal channels and the e-books are made freely available through this web page (with the indicated persistent URL which you can use in citations as it is permanent). Reviews of books in the Publication Series are available here. 

Philosophical Foundations of International Criminal Law:Correlating Thinkers

PURL: http://www.toaep.org/ps-pdf/34-bergsmo-buis

Table of contents: http://www.toaep.org/ps-pdf/34-bergsmo-buis

The book can be ordered in hardcover here

More information here

(source: ESCLH Blog)

BOOK: Immi TALLGREN & Thomas SKOUTERIS (eds.), The New Histories of International Criminal Law [The History and Theory of International Law] (Oxford: OUP, 2019), 288 p. ISBN 9780198829638, 70 GBP

(image source: OUP)

Book abstract:

The language of international criminal law has considerable traction in global politics, and much of its legitimacy is embedded in apparently 'axiomatic' historical truths. This innovative edited collection brings together some of the world's leading international lawyers with a very clear mandate in mind: to re-evaluate ('retry') the dominant historiographical tradition in the field of international criminal law. Carefully curated, and with contributions by leading scholars, The New Histories of International Criminal Law pursues three research objectives: to bring to the fore the structure and function of contemporary histories of international criminal law, to take issue with the consequences of these histories, and to call for their demystification. The essays discern several registers on which the received historiographical tradition must be retried: tropology; inclusions/exclusions; gender; race; representations of the victim and the perpetrator; history and memory; ideology and master narratives; international criminal law and hegemonic theories; and more. This book intervenes critically in the fields of international criminal law and international legal history by bringing in new voices and fresh approaches. Taken as a whole, it provides a rich account of the dilemmas, conundrums, and possibilities entailed in writing histories

Contents:

 1: Editors' Introduction, Immi Tallgren & Thomas Skouteris 2: Foreword, Martti Koskenniemi 3: Unprecedents, Gerry Simpson 4: Founding Moments and Founding Fathers: Shaping Publics Through the Sentimentalization of History Narratives, Kamari Clarke 5: From the Sentimental Story of the State to the Verbrecherstaat; Or, the Rise of the Atrocity Paradigm, Lawrence Douglas 6: International Criminal Justice History Writing as Anachronism, Frederic Megret 7: Redeeming Rape: Berlin 1945 and the Making of Modern International Criminal Law, Heidi Matthews 8: 'Voglio una donna!': Of Contributing to History of International Criminal Law with the Help of Women Who Perpetrated International Crimes, Immi Tallgren 9: Writing More Inclusive Histories of International Criminal Law: Lessons From the Transatlantic Slave Trade, Emily Haslam 10: The 'Africa Blue Books' at Versailles: World War I, Narrative and Unthinkable Histories of International Criminal Law, Christopher Gevers 11: Crimes Against Humanity: Racialized Subjects and Deracialized Histories, Vasuki Nesiah 12: Nazi Atrocities, International Criminal Law, and War Crimes Trials. The Soviet Union and the Global Moment of Post-World War II Justice, Franziska Exeler 13: Theodor Meron and the Humanization of International Law, Aleksi Peltonen 14: Histories of the Jewish 'Collaborator': Exile, not Guilt, Mark Drumbl

(source: OUP)

CHAPTER: Ignacio DE LA RASILLA Y DEL MORAL, "Quintiliano Saldaña Garcia-Rubio (1878-1938)" in The Dawn of a Discipline – International Criminal Justice and Its Early Exponents, Frédéric MEGRET & Immi TALLGREN (eds.), forthcoming (SSRN)

(image source: KUL)

Abstract:

Quintiliano Saldaña Garcia-Rubio (1878-1938) was one of the leading proponents of ‘legal pragmatism’ in European criminal law circles in the interwar period and the author of the first course on international criminal justice delivered at The Hague Academy of International Law in 1925. This chapter examines the three main stages in Saldaña’s polyhedral intellectual life. The first part surveys Saldaña’s formative years and his early academic professional development, examining the influence of Franz von Liszt’s Marburg School of Criminal Law on his academic interests and professional career until the end of the First World War. The second part examines Saldaña’s seminal theory of ‘universal social defence’ and his 1925 Hague Academy course, La justice pénale internationale, which included one of the first projects for an international criminal code. It also reviews Saldaña's legislative contribution to the polemical 1928 Spanish Criminal Code project, which is widely considered an example of a proto-fascist criminal code. The third part follows Saldaña’s career during the Second Spanish Republic, surveying his criminal law and criminology work in the development of his theory of ‘legal pragmatism.’ It also revisits his engagement with the mid-1930s international legal debates on terrorism in the framework his contribution to the works of the International Bureau for the Unification of Criminal Law. The conclusion revisits the mysterious circumstances of Saldaña’s death during the Spanish Civil War and the dark legacy of his legal thought on the criminal law system of General Franco’s regime in Spain.

Read the full paper on SSRN.

(source: International Law Reporter)

PODCAST: Histoire de la justice: De La Haye à Bogoro, quand l'art et les sciences sociales travaillent la justice internationale [La Fabrique de l'Histoire] (France Culture)

(image source: France Culture)

La Fabrique de l'Histoire, France Culture's flagship history podcast, welcomed a series of legal historians to discuss the history of justice.

The penultimate episode focuses on art, social science and international criminal justice.


More information here.

ARTICLE: Anne HOLTHOEFER, Construction of International Crime: Lawyers, States, and the Origin of International Criminal Prosecution in the Interwar Period (Law & Social Inquiry XLII (2017), No. 3, 711-743)

Anne Holthoefer (Saint Anselm College) published an article on the "construction of international crime" and the interbellum.

Abstract:

This article explains the development of international crime as a legal category. I argue that states’ pursuit of political rights claims empowers international lawyers to develop new legal categories to grant states new tools to pursue their interests. At the same time, lawyers have a stake in defending the autonomy of law from politics, thus pushing for the development of legal norms and institutions that go beyond the original state intent. States’ turn to law thus begets more law, expanding the legal and institutional tools to solve international problems while simultaneously enforcing a commitment to principles of legality. To demonstrate the plausibility of the theory, the article studies the construction of the concept of an international crime in the interwar period (1919–1939). In response to the Allies’ attempt to prosecute the German Emperor, international lawyers sought the codification of international criminal law and drafted enforcement mechanisms. The interwar legal debate not only introduced international crime into the legal and political vocabulary, it also legitimized a new set of institutional responses to violations of international law, namely, international criminal prosecution.

Source: International Law Reporter.
More information with Wiley.

PAPER ON SSRN: Samuel MOYN (Harvard), "From Aggression to Atrocity: Rethinking the History of International Criminal Law"

(image source: SSRN)

Prof. Samuel Moyn (Harvard) posted "From Aggression to Atrocity: Rethinking the History of International Criminal Law" on SSRN.

Abstract:

Explaining the shift from the priority of the charge of "aggression" in the beginning of the field of international criminal law to its exclusion in the age of the its reinvention around a suite of atrocity charges is the central task for historians in understanding this domain — and it also should matter for observers of the world today. Yet routinely, international criminal law is presented as running through a smooth trajectory, rather than a stark reversal or at least massive shift. For this reason, this essay gathers together elements for a case for the transformation in the first place, and floats some hypotheses about its timing and causes.

 (Source: International Law Reporter)

CONFERENCE: Law, Biography, and a Trial: Tokyo’s Transnational Histories (Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg/Universität Heidelberg, 6-7 Dec 2015)

(image source: Wikimedia Commons)

The "Internationales Wissenschaftsforum Heidelberg" and Heidelberg University (JRG: "Transcultural Justice: Legal Flows and the Emergence of International Justice within the East Asian War Crimes Trials, 1945-1954"/Excellenzcluster "Asia aand Europa in a Global Context") organize a conference on the "Transnational Histories of the Tokyo Trials".

Registration is open until 5 December 2015.

Summary:

The lineages of contemporary international law have generally been envisioned in terms of the imposition of western concepts on other parts of the world. As research has shown, war crimes trials after the Second World War, in particular the International Military Tribunals at Nuremberg (IMT) and at Tokyo (IMTFE), claimed to be enforcing “justice”, but nevertheless proved to be battlegrounds for intense political and ideological struggle within the new post-war international world order. War crimes trials thus contributed to the development of international criminal law, the formation of transcultural norms of legality and legitimacy, as well as transnationally debated (and contested) notions of “justice.”
This workshop brings together fresh research on the political contexts in which new norms and practices of international criminal law emerged after 1945 in Asia, studying how the Tokyo Tribunal, active between May 1948 and November 1948, operated under the impact of external political and legal pressures, while also evolving new standards and debates that left a global impact beyond Japan. Through a combination of qualitative comparative research, theoretical conceptualization, and policy and cultural analyses, this project - by using the biographical lens on individual actors and interest groups - scrutinizes new modes and techniques of political legitimation and juridicality which emerged in the mid-20th century as a result of transcultural encounters in the crossroads of Europe, USA, USSR, Australia, and East, South-East and South Asia.
While the workshop gives due importance to legal actors who contributed to the formation of the majority judgment, it also puts in the foreground judges who did not throw their lot in with the majority judgment, and emphasizes subversive blocs or coalitions of individuals, thereby including also the defense lawyers in the trial. These various actors produced subterranean transnational networks that sometimes remain invisible in research. This workshop focusses also on the networks constructed through juridical institutions and theatres (not only the trial itself, but also universities, the UNWCC, the International Law Commission) which either had an impact on the trial or were influenced by its legacies.

Program:

Sunday, 6 Dec 2015:
Opening of the conference:
18.00-18.20:
Kerstin von LINGEN (Heidelberg U): Introduction: Legal Flows and Travelling Judges at the IMTFE.
Dinner
19.45 Film Screening (Japan. documentary 'Inside the Tokyo Tribunal', English version, aprox. 60 mins)
Monday, 7 Dec 2015:
10.00 h-10.25: Morning Coffee
10.25-10.55
Urs Matthias ZACHMANN (Edinburgh U): Loser’s Justice: the Tokyo Trial from the Perspective of the Japanese Legal Community
10.55-11.25
James Burnham SEDGWICK (Acadia University, Nova Scotia/ Canada): Building Blocs: Communities of Dissent, Manufactured Majorities, and International Judgment in Tokyo
11.25-11.55
Yuki TAKATORI (Georgia State University, Atlanta): “Justifying the vengeance by a successful belligerent” – Canadian view of the Tokyo War Crimes Trial
11.55 – 12.25
Hitoshi NAGAI (Hiroshima City University): Burdened by the “Shadow of War”: Justice Delfin Jaranilla and the Tokyo Trial
GROUP PICTURE
Lunch Break 12.30-14.30
14.30-15.00
Anja BIHLER (Heidelberg U): Judge Mei Ru’ao and the Chinese delegation at the IMTFE Criminals
15.00-15.30
Valentyna POLUNINA (Heidelberg U): The Soviets at Tokyo: international justice at the dawn of the Cold War
15.30-16.00
Ann-Sophie SCHOEPFEL (Heidelberg U): Defending French National Interests or Defending Justice Bernard? The dilemma of Ambassador Zinovy Peshkoff at the Tokyo Trial
16.00–16.20 Afternoon Coffee
16.20-16.50
Lisette SCHOUTEN (Heidelberg U): In the footsteps of Grotius. The Netherlands and its representation at the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, 1945-1948.
16.50-17.20
Kerstin VON LINGEN (Heidelberg U): Judge William Patrick, Prosecutor Arthur Comyns-Carr and British approaches to the IMTFE
17.20-17.50
David M. CROWE (Elon U, USA): MacArthur, Keenan, and the American Quest for Justice at the IMFTE
Concluding Debate
End of conference 18.30

 Contact:

Kerstin von Lingen
Exzellenzcluster, Vossstr. 2/4400, 69115 Heidelberg
06221/544377
lingen@asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de

 Source: HSozKult.