Description: Why do international criminal tribunals write histories of the origins and causes of armed conflicts? Richard Ashby Wilson conducted empirical research with judges, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and expert witnesses in three international criminal tribunals to understand how law and history are combined in the courtroom. Historical testimony is now an integral part of international trials, with prosecutors and defense teams using background testimony to pursue decidedly legal objectives. Both use historical narratives to frame the alleged crimes and to articulate their side's theory of the case. In the Slobodan Milosevic trial, the prosecution sought to demonstrate special intent to commit genocide by reference to a long-standing animus, nurtured within a nationalist mind-set. For their part, the defense calls historical witnesses to undermine charges of superior responsibility, and to mitigate the sentence by representing crimes as reprisals. Although legal ways of knowing are distinctive from those of history, the two are effectively combined in international trials in a way that challenges us to rethink the relationship between law and history.
Brief description: Richard Ashby Wilson is Gladstein Distinguished Chair of Human Rights, Professor of Anthropology and Law, and Director of the Human Rights Institute, at the University of Connecticut. He is the author of The Politics of Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa (2001) and editor or co-editor of six books, including Culture and Rights, Human Rights and the 'War on Terror' and Humanitarianism and Suffering. He has held a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities (2009-10) and has been a Visiting Professor at the University of Oslo, the New School for Social Research and the University of the Witwatersrand. Presently he serves as Chair of the State Advisory Committee for the US Civil Rights Commission.
Review Quotes: "How well do international criminal courts craft historical understandings of genocide, massacre and other grave violations of human rights? And how well do recent efforts to highlight such traumatic history in international trials promote sound judicial outcomes? These questions not only torment survivors, but should preoccupy everyone concerned with the cause of international criminal justice. Bringing to these issues the skills of a legal anthropologist, a learned appreciation of international humanitarian law and a refined legal sensibility, Richard Wilson provides answers based on path breaking new research. The first full-dress examination of this topic, this is a splendid book that should dominate the discussion of this important topic."
Michael R. MarrusChancellor Rose and Ray Wolfe Professor Emeritus of Holocaust Studies, University of Toronto