Fact-Finding without Facts: The Uncertain Evidentiary Foundations of International Criminal Convictions
Cambridge University Press, 7/30/2010
EAN 9780521111157, ISBN10: 0521111153
Hardcover, 430 pages, 23.5 x 15.8 x 2.5 cm
Language: English
Fact-Finding Without Facts explores international criminal fact-finding - empirically, conceptually, and normatively. After reviewing thousands of pages of transcripts from various international criminal tribunals, the author reveals that international criminal trials are beset by numerous and severe fact-finding impediments that substantially impair the tribunals' ability to determine who did what to whom. These fact-finding impediments have heretofore received virtually no publicity, let alone scholarly treatment, and they are deeply troubling not only because they raise grave concerns about the accuracy of the judgments currently being issued but because they can be expected to similarly impair the next generation of international trials that will be held at the International Criminal Court. After setting forth her empirical findings, the author considers their conceptual and normative implications. The author concludes that international criminal tribunals purport a fact-finding competence that they do not possess and, as a consequence, base their judgments on a less precise, more amorphous method of fact-finding than they publicly acknowledge.
1. The evidence supporting international criminal convictions
2. Questions unanswered
international witnesses and the information unconveyed
3. The educational, linguistic, and cultural impediments to accurate fact-finding at the international tribunals
4. Of inconsistencies and their explanations
5. Perjury
the counter-narrative
6. Expectations unfulfilled
the consequences of the fact-finding impediments
7. Casual indifference
the trial chambers' treatment of testimonial deficiencies
8. Organizational liability revived
the pro-conviction bias explained
9. Help needed
practical suggestions and procedural reforms to improve fact-finding accuracy
10. Assessing the status quo
they are not doing what they say they are doing but is what they are doing worth doing?
11. Conclusion.