'Bring Forth the Accused!' Defendant Attitudes and the Intimate Legitimacy of the International Criminal Trial

Individuals Accused of International Crimes as Delegitimized Agents of Truth

“…Accounting for the perceptions of the accused is relevant for scholarship on the role of international criminal courts in TJ settings. In line with previous studies , we base this study on the premise that those accused at the ICTY, as key subjects of the workings of a still-infant system of international criminal justice (Mégret, 2005), can provide us with another valuable viewpoint to understand better its role, its functioning, and its challenges. This is all the more relevant, given the ongoing criticism of international criminal justice (Schwöbel, 2014).…”

“…Within international criminal law scholarship, there has been a recent surge in research interest for defendants. Such perspectives are situated within a broader critical perspective focused on the international criminal justice project and the dominant discourses supporting its development and practices (see Devresse & Scalia, 2016;Mégret, 2005). Scholarly interest for the perspective of the accused within international criminal courts is scarcer, even though there are indications that this field of research is developing.…”

“…One can mention research focusing on defendants' active role in challenging the legality of international criminal courts and their practices (Gallant, 2010). There is also an increasing interest for investigating the conduct of defendants in international criminal trials and how they exploit opportunities within the judicial process to gain agency (e.g., Mégret, 2005;Meijers & Glasius, 2013).…”

“…Defendants can, as illustrated in the Karadzic and Milosevic trials, strategically focus their defense on narratives of victimhood and innocence. They are well aware that these representations of the past will have a significant resonance among local constituencies who support them as heroic representatives of their community in the postwar memory landscape (Mégret, 2005). Narratives produced by the prosecution that ground the verdict of culpability, on the other hand, are more likely to be accepted by the communities which are considered to be the victims of the collective crimes that are prosecuted (Barkan & Becirbasic, 2015).…”

“I Would Do the Same Again”

“…Rather than building on the extensive literature surrounding the alleged legal transgressions in Plavšić's plea bargain and her case more generally, I want to turn attention to Plavšić's own understandings of her trial and time in the Swedish prison, her subsequent release, and current life in Serbia. As Mina Rauschenbach argues, while there has been a recent surge in research interest in defendants and their role within international criminal processes (Glasius, 2014;Megret, 2005;Meijers & Glasius, 2013), much less attention has been given to how those accused and prosecuted by international criminal tribunals perceive these institutions and make sense of their procedures and practices. 3 Due to the widespread recognition of the various challenges and critiques that international criminal justice has to face (Schwöbel, 2014;Toyoki & Brown, 2014), the legitimacy of international criminal courts rests significantly on how multiple constituents perceive and accept them, as mandate givers (states), justice stakeholders (victims, perpetrators, communities affected by crimes of the past), or others (international organizations, civil society actors; Buckley-Zistel, 2017).…”