The Congo Trials in the International Criminal Court
Cambridge University Press, 10/15/2020
EAN 9781108488013, ISBN10: 1108488013
Hardcover, 475 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.7 cm
Language: English
This is the first in-depth study of the first three ICC trials: an engaging, accessible text meant for specialists and students, for legal advocates and a wide range of professionals concerned with diverse cultures, human rights, and restorative justice. It introduces international justice and courtroom trials in practical terms, offering a balanced view on persistent tensions and controversies. Separate chapters analyze the working realities of central African armed conflicts, finding reasons for their surprising resistance to ICC legal formulas. The book dissects the Court's structural dynamics, which were designed to steer an elusive middle course between high moral ideals and hard political realities. Detailed chapters provide vivid accounts of courtroom encounters with four Congolese suspects. The mixed record of convictions, acquittals, dissents, and appeals, resulting from these trials, provides a map of distinct fault-lines within the ICC legal code, and suggests a rocky path ahead for the Court's next ventures.
Part I. A laboratory for global justice
Part II. Testing a new court
1. Spreading justice to distant conflicts
2. Balancing politics, morality, and culture
Part III. Back in Ituri
3. Ituri in the web of chaos
the macro view
4. Structures of local conflict
the micro view
Part IV. The bridge to the Hague
5. Battling impunity in Ituri
6. ICC structures, dynamics, tensions
Part V. The Congo trials
7. The trial of Thomas Lubanga
8. The trial of Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo
9. The trial of Jean-Pierre Bemba
Part VI. Observations.