Description: International and national armed conflicts are usually preceded by a media campaign in which public figures foment ethnic, national, racial or religious hatred, inciting listeners to acts of violence. Incitement on Trial evaluates the efforts of international criminal tribunals to hold such inciters criminally responsible. This is an unsettled area of international criminal law, and prosecutors have often struggled to demonstrate a causal connection between speech acts and subsequent crimes. This book identifies 'revenge speech' as the type of rhetoric with the greatest effects on empathy and tolerance for violence. Wilson argues that inciting speech should be handled under the preventative doctrine of inchoate crimes, but that once international crimes have been committed, then ordering and complicity are the most appropriate forms of criminal liability. Based in extensive original research, this book proposes an evidence-based risk assessment model for monitoring political speech.
Brief description: Richard Wilson has published ten books on human rights and justice. His most recent book, Writing History in International Criminal Trials (Cambridge, 2011), was selected by Choice in 2012 as an 'Outstanding Academic Title' in the law category. He writes widely on human rights and has published in the Washington Post (US), Dagbladet (Norway), The Independent (UK), NRC Handelsblad (Netherlands) and the Times Higher Education Supplement (UK). He has held prestigious fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton and Russell Sage Foundation, and he has consulted for various policy agencies including UNICEF in Sierra Leone. He served as Chair of the Connecticut State Advisory Committee of the US Commission on Civil Rights from 2009-13.
Review Quotes: 'Richard Wilson's Incitement on Trial makes a powerful argument about how the law should address conduct that often plays a crucial role in fomenting crimes against humanity and genocide. It is an outstanding book.' Aryeh Neier, President Emeritus, Open Society Foundations