Justice on Screen – A Study of Four Documentary Films on the International Criminal Court

Abstract

In the past ten years or so, several documentaries on international criminal justice have been produced, shown at film festivals, and used for advocacy and educational purposes. On some occasions, artists, humanitarian organizations, and the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC) have worked closely together in the production of documentary films. Documentaries have thus become important tools for education and the spread of imageries of international criminal justice. So far, however, international legal scholars have largely shied away from researching cinematic representations of their field. In this article, I seek to remedy this by focusing on a family of four recent influential documentaries related to the ICC: The Reckoning, The Court, Prosecutor, and Watchers of the Sky. All four use similar modes of representation, narration and promotion and basically communicate the same message about the Court. My article critically analyzes how such artistic interventions have helped create specific images, stories, and sentiments.

The Politics of True Crime: Vulnerability and Documentaries on Murder in Swedish Public Service Radio’s P3 Documentary

“…At the heart of documentary practice lies questions of truth and reliability. Documentary makers claim to show and speak the truth, and their audiences expect to receive 'truthful representations of facts and trustworthy arguments' (Werner 2016(Werner , p. 1048. However, the claim to truth finds different expressions in different kinds of documentary and in different kinds of media, and key in much research on the documentary is how the relationship between reality and representation is to be understood.…”

“…Since the radio documentary on crime is the object here-what is the role of the narrator and other voices in this format? According to Werner (2016Werner ( , p. 1050, the expository mode dominates the field of criminal law, and therefore 'most documentaries […] have a rather moralizing and educational tone-they come with a message'. Since the verbal message is central, and is important for the way in which, for example, victims are portrayed, the argumentative set-up of expository documentaries runs the risk of reducing the complexities of individuals and their lives to mere illustrations of the central message (Werner 2016(Werner , p. 1051.…”

“…According to Werner (2016Werner ( , p. 1050, the expository mode dominates the field of criminal law, and therefore 'most documentaries […] have a rather moralizing and educational tone-they come with a message'. Since the verbal message is central, and is important for the way in which, for example, victims are portrayed, the argumentative set-up of expository documentaries runs the risk of reducing the complexities of individuals and their lives to mere illustrations of the central message (Werner 2016(Werner , p. 1051. This is the case of so-called 'True Crime', a term used to include 'any true accounts or case studies of real crime and its aftermath' that often refers to documentaries 'using an investigative mode either to "solve" or to recall the details of notorious murders or other atrocities' (Biressi 2004, p. 402).…”

“…However, the attention to context and the calm and cautious tempo does not imply authority and omniscience. If anything, the narrator is inquiring (Bruzzi)-which is unusual in crime documentaries, where the 'voice of God' dominates (Werner 2016(Werner , p. 1050. The focus on complexity, recognition and closure, rather than on the promotion of suspense and sensation, leaves a range of possible positions open to the listener-one being the ability to understand the tragedy from the point of view of the Sahindal family.…”

“…According to Werner (2016Werner ( , p. 1043, documentaries have become 'important tools for education and the spread of imageries of […] criminal justice'. The P3 documentaries on murder do spread such 'imageries', but they do not educate-in fact, they rarely use the experts to explain the law at all.…”