Opening Statements at The Hague and Arusha

Rogers, Damien

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-60994-2_7

Damien Rogers⁴

Part of the book series: Human Rights Interventions ((HURIIN))

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Abstract

The first opening statements at the ICTY and the ICTR, Rogers explains, were vital ingredients in the trial process and proved fundamental to the reinvigorated efforts to prosecute mass atrocities after the end of the Cold War. This chapter argues that the second generation of international prosecutors no longer needed to overtly vilify discredited utopian movements as neoliberalism was firmly entrenched in many places throughout the world. Nevertheless, their prosecutorial conduct produced a political rhetoric implicitly endorsing the neoliberal dispensation and thereby constituted a form of politics. The chapter also argues that when these prosecutors denounce defendants and call for them to be cast out beyond humanity’s ranks, they do so in support of those seeking to control the modernist project.

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Notes

1.
See Prosecutor v Tadić (Indictment (Amended)) ICTY Pre-Trial Chamber IT-94-1-I, 14 December 1995.
2.
Prosecutor v Tadić (transcript) ICTY Trial Chamber IT-94-1-T, 7 May 1996, 10.
3.
Tadić, 11.
4.
Tadić, 12–13.
5.
Tadić, 19.
6.
Prosecutor v Jean Paul Akayesu (transcript) ICTR Trial Chamber ICTR-94-4-T, 9 January 1997 at [7].
7.
Tadić, 13.
8.
Tadić, 14.
9.
Tadić, 18.
10.
Tadić, 20–21.
11.
Tadić, 26.
12.
Tadić, 34.
13.
Akayesu, 28.
14.
Akayesu, 29.
15.
Akayesu, 29–31.
16.
Akayesu, 40.
17.
Akayesu, 49.
18.
Akayesu, 50.
19.
Tadić, 47.
20.
Akayesu, 47.
21.
Akayesu, 44.
22.
Akayesu, 43.
23.
Akayesu, 53.
24.
Akayesu, 55.
25.
Akayesu, 65.
26.
Akayesu, 66.
27.
Akayesu, 67.
28.
Akayesu, 57.
29.
Akayesu, 58.
30.
Akayesu, 59.
31.
Akayesu, 21. (Emphasis added.)
32.
Tadić, 11–12.
33.
Michael A. Sells, The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia (Berkley: University of California Press, 1996), 87. For Sells, “[t]he word ‘ethnic’ in ‘ethnic cleansing’ is a euphemism. Bosnian Serbs, Croats, and Muslims all speak the same language, despite the fact that for political reasons they each call it now by a different name. They all trace their descent to tribes that migrated to the area around the sixth century and were Slavic in language and culture by the time they settled in the area. Those who had been singled out for persecution have fallen on the wrong side of a dividing line based solely on religious identity.” At 13.
34.
Tadić, 34.
35.
Akayesu, 28.
36.
Akayesu, 30–32. (Emphasis added.)
37.
Payam Akhavan, “Justice and Reconciliation in the Great Lakes Region of Africa: The Contribution of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda,” Duke Journal of Comparative an International Law 7 (1997): 348.
38.
Akayesu, 25.
39.
Roland Paris, At War’s End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 72 & 107.
40.
Anne Orford, Reading Humanitarian Intervention: Human Rights and the Use of Force in International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 17–18.
41.
Martti Koskenniemi, The Politics of International Law (Oxford and Portland: Hart Publishing, 2011), 75.
42.
Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 3.
43.
Martti Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 614.
44.
Tadić, 11–12.
45.
Akayesu, 68–69.
46.
Tadić, 27–28, 35, & 39.
47.
Akayesu, 49–52.
48.
Tadić, 26.
49.
Akayesu, 33.
50.
Akayesu, 37–38.
51.
Tadić, 27.
52.
Akhavan, “Justice and Reconciliation,” 329.
53.
Payam Akhavan, “Beyond Impunity: Can International Criminal Justice Prevent Future Atrocities?” American Journal of International Law 95 (2001): 7.
54.
Gerry Simpson, Law, War and Crime: War Crimes Trials and the Reinvention of International Law (Cambridge: Polity, 2007), 161.
55.
Louise Arbour, War Crimes and the Culture of Peace (Toronto, Buffalo, and London: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 46.
56.
Paris, At War’s End, 5.
57.
Danilo Zolo, Victors’ Justice: From Nuremberg to Baghdad, trans. M.W. Weir (London: Verso, 2009), 158.
58.
William Schabas, Unimaginable Atrocities: Justice, Politics, and Rights at the War Crimes Tribunals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012). 77.
59.
John Gray, Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia (London: Penguin, 2007), 75.

References

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Gray, John. 2007. Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia. London: Penguin.
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Koskenniemi, Martti. 2001. The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870–1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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———. 2005. From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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———. 2011. The Politics of International Law. Oxford/Portland: Hart Publishing.
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Orford, Anne. 2003. Reading Humanitarian Intervention: Human Rights and the Use of Force in International Law. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Paris, Roland. 2004. At War’s End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Book Google Scholar
Prosecutor v Tadić (Indictment (Amended)) ICTY Pre-Trial Chamber IT-94-1-I, 14 December 1995.
Google Scholar
Prosecutor v Tadić (transcript) ICTY Trial Chamber IT-94-1-T, 7 May 1996.
Google Scholar
Prosecutor v Jean Paul Akayesu (transcript) ICTR Trial Chamber ICTR-94-4-T, 9 January 1997.
Google Scholar
Schabas, William. 2012. Unimaginable Atrocities: Justice, Politics, and Rights at the War Crimes Tribunals. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Sells, Michael A. 1996. The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia. Berkeley: University of California Press.
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Simpson, Gerry. 2007. Law, War and Crime: War Crimes Trials and the Reinvention of International Law. Cambridge: Polity.
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Zolo, Danilo. 2009. Victors’ Justice: From Nuremberg to Baghdad, trans. M.W. Weir. London: Verso.
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Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand
Damien Rogers

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Rogers, D. (2018). Opening Statements at The Hague and Arusha. In: Law, Politics and the Limits of Prosecuting Mass Atrocity. Human Rights Interventions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60994-2_7

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60994-2_7
Published: 31 August 2017
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-60993-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-60994-2
eBook Packages: Political Science and International StudiesPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)

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