De Facto International Prosecutors in a Global Era: With My Own Eyes, by Melinda Rankin, examines how witnesses and victims emerge as leaders in accountability processes that undergird international criminal law. Her work illustrates how individuals support and maintain international law even when local investigative options and international tribunals remain unavailable. This well-written, engaging book will be of interest to scholars and students of international law, legal advocacy, human rights, transitional justice, and judicial politics. By linking individual efforts to transnational networks and state institutions, it also will be valuable for practitioners interested in international criminal law and mobilization.
Building on the work of Kathryn Sikkink, Emanuel Adler, Etienne Wegner, and Martha Finnemore, Rankin examines how witnesses and victims hold former heads of state accountable for torture in foreign courts pursuing universal jurisdiction. These individuals become “de facto international prosecutors,” taking on activities typically associated with prosecutors, such as investigatory and evidence-gathering roles, legal analysis, drafting case briefs, and submitting criminal complaints. Rankin demonstrates how these individuals emerge as key leaders in accountability processes, offering a compelling counternarrative that rejects the notion that witnesses and victims are merely passive actors in the pursuit of justice. To achieve these goals, de facto international prosecutors work together to form “cooperative criminal accountability communities” that engage in coordinating investigations, gathering evidence, and legal argumentation. More than a mere network, these communities are communities of practice, demonstrating the active agency of witnesses and victims in collaborating with other practitioners. Rankin’s argument takes an interdisciplinary approach, weaving together political biography, political and legal analysis, and case analyses.
The book is organized into three sections. The first (chap. 1) consists of the theoretical framework for the research questions: How/when do particular interpretations of international law “win out” over others in court judgments, and what dynamics and mechanisms can we observe and theorize as effective in pursuing accountability? The second section (chaps. 2–5) offers empirical investigations through three case studies: Chile, Chad, and Syria. The third (chap. 6) describes how these individuals conceptualize international criminal law.
Rankin holds that international criminal law forms a unique subset of international law because it is inherently in tension with state sovereignty and immunity laws and it has evolved to resemble common law systems with the application of judicial jurisprudence. It is this uniqueness that explains why individuals can extend the reach of international criminal law. She demonstrates that de facto international prosecutors successfully argued that the crime of torture was an accepted and recognized peremptory norms (jus cogens), which implies a unique hierarchy because peremptory norms can void conflicting treaties (Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Articles 53 and 64) and can supersede international rules governing immunity. Further, the Convention against Torture (CAT) bolsters this argument because it codified existing legal norms, generated a duty to exercise jurisdiction, and has no head of state exception—thereby reinforcing torture crimes as jus cogens and thus above international laws governing immunity.
For example, Juan Garcés, who is credited as the architect of the case against Augusto Pinochet, used these arguments to build a case and develop a cooperative criminal accountability community that spanned Chile, Argentina, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Following the Nuremberg model, they collected evidence linking the former head of state to torture crimes. The decision by the British House of Lords that Pinochet was not immune from prosecution confirmed, validated, and normalized the legal interpretations offered by Garcés.
The Pinochet case also directly informed the case against Hissène Habré in Chad. Souleymane Guengueng, a victim of torture and arbitrary detention, became a de facto international prosecutor who built a local criminal accountability community that worked to document crimes and record victim statements. His strategy shifted once he began to work with international NGOs. Rankin traces the tenacious, adaptive strategies of the accountability community as they sought evidence, legal opportunities, and political support. After decades of transnational efforts, Habré was tried and found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity by the Extraordinary African Chambers.
In Syria, the ongoing prosecutorial action of Chief Investigator I from the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) illustrates the formalization and institutionalization of criminal accountability communities. Rankin discusses the development of CIJA, which began with local Syrians working to document crimes followed by their training to become “citizen journalists,” the formalization of the group as more transnational experts became involved and states began to fund their efforts, and its shift to analyzing evidentiary materials and drafting case briefs that would be ready once a domestic or international tribunal became available. CIJA reflects an innovative approach that relied on local and transnational expertise (and funding) to create a formal organization that could engage in de facto international prosecutorial activities while the crimes remain ongoing.
Through these cases, Rankin makes three main arguments. First, witnesses and victims of international crimes remain at the heart of the communities of practice undergirding international law. These individuals view and apply international criminal law as a universal legal standard, generated from multiple international and domestic sources, to form an “international unwritten constitution” that obligates states and individuals (p. 201). They thus use the law to conduct the tasks necessary to prepare materials for when state institutions do decide to participate.
Second, these individuals do not, and do not intend to, work alone. Instead, they form a community of practice with other actors to extend the application of international criminal law. These individuals identify sources of international law with the goal of having these acts validated by state legal officials in future domestic or international courts. Hence, these communities of practice include private, nonstate actors, as well as state officials.
Third, these individuals are not entrepreneurs in the sense of attempting to create new laws; rather, they emphasize that they draw from preexisting, established laws already recognized by states. These cases demonstrate that each case informs the subsequent case—often including the very same individuals and drawing on lessons learned. Hence, this results in the slow, intentional expansion and application of existing, recognized law.
At its core, this book shows how individuals can meaningfully have an impact on international law and achieve criminal accountability. These case studies provide a richer view of how international law operates, showing how it influences behavior by enabling and mobilizing certain actors and how international legal regimes are supported and maintained even when formal institutional options are unavailable. Rankin moves away from the standard focus on state behavior and compliance to add to the growing body of scholarship that situates domestic law and courts as enforcers of international law. Indeed, domestic legal systems—and their incorporation of international law—can offer the “preconditions for accountability” (p. 179). The case studies offer astute observations that seamlessly navigate across levels of analysis, bridging individual experiences and beliefs with community-level strategies and practices, national politics and legal systems, and international politics and law. Rankin persuasively articulates how examining this broader range of actors, institutions, and avenues for accountability unveils the range of possibilities available to maintain the system of international criminal law and empower greater accountability through both official and de facto means.
