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The ‘ideal victim’: A cage for victims’ narratives at the International Criminal Court
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2023
Abstract
Despite Article 68(3) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) granting victims an autonomous standing in proceedings, victims’ participatory rights have often been tailored to fit within the retributive structure of the trials. This contribution aims to provide a different perspective on victims’ role and their narratives in proceedings at the ICC, building upon the expressivist model of international criminal justice and focusing on a specific strand that engages with the adjudication process’s performative and communicative features. In providing a better understanding of how victims’ narrative unfolds in trials at the ICC, the article addresses two issues: how the concept of the victim is constructed at the ICC; and whether and, eventually, how this construct impedes progress in recognizing their narratives in proceedings at the ICC. Concerning the first issue, drawing on criminologist Nils Christie’s theorizing of the ‘ideal victim’, it will be observed that the construct of victims in proceedings at the ICC reflects three main attributes: weakness; innocence; and dependency. The second issue shed light on the extent to which the emphasis on the ‘ideal victim’ can serve as a tool in the hands of institutional actors at the ICC to pre-empt, constrain and subordinate victims’ narratives, in a manner that oversimplifies victimhood. To impose a particular narrative upon victims’ experiences, three main procedural mechanisms have been identified: appropriation of victims’ interests; legal representation of abstract victimhood; and exclusion from the trial of victims who do not conform to the ideal victim.
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- ORIGINAL ARTICLE
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- © The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Foundation of the Leiden Journal of International Law in association with the Grotius Centre for International Law, Leiden University
Footnotes
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A special thanks to my supervisor, Prof. Dr. Clara Burbano Herrera (Ghent University), for her encouragement and guidance. Her generosity and expertise have improved this study in innumerable ways. I am also grateful for the insightful comments offered by the two anonymous peer reviewers. I extend my gratitude to the Research Foundation - Flanders which provides financial support for the larger project from which this article grew, research project n. FWO-12C8323N.
References
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2 Ibid., at 12.
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36 See Stahn, supra note 13, at 301.
37 Ibid., at 253.
38 Ibid.
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40 See Stahn, supra note 13, at 254.
41 Ibid., at 301.
42 C. Murphy, The Conceptual Foundations of Transitional Justice (2017), 176.
43 See Christie, supra note 20, at 18.
44 Ibid., at 22–3.
45 Ibid., at 19.
46 S. Walklate and R. McGarry, Victims: Trauma, Testimony and Justice (2015), 16. See also A-M. McAlinden, ‘Deconstructing Victim and Offender Identities in Discourses on Child Sexual Abuse: Hierarchies, Blame and the Good/Evil Dialectic’, (2014) 54 British Journal of Criminology 180, at 182; F. Furendi, Moral Crusades in an Age of Mistrust: The Jimmy Savile Scandal (2013), 56; S. Walklate, ‘Reframing Criminal Victimization: Finding a Place for Vulnerability and Resilience’, (2011) 15 Theoretical Criminology 179; S. Walklate, Imagining the Victim of Crime (2006).
47 J. Van Dijk, ‘Free the Victim: A Critique of the Western Conception of Victimhood’, (2009) 16 International Review of Victimology 1, at 24.
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49 See, e.g., Van Dijk supra note 47, at 22; J. Dignan, Understanding Victims and Restorative Justice (2004), 167; R. Young, ‘Testing the Limits of Restorative Justice: The Case of Corporate Victims’, in C. Hoyle and R. Young (eds.), New Visions of Crime Victims (2002), 133, at 146.
50 C. Cunneen, ‘The Limitations of Restorative Justice’, in C. Cunneen and C. Hoyle (eds.), Debating Restorative Justice (2010), 101, at 133.
51 See Moffett, supra note 19, at 149.
52 E. Carrabine et al., Criminology: A Sociological Introduction (2009), 159.
53 Ibid.; see Walklate and McGarry, supra note 46, at 16.
54 J. van Wijk, ‘Who Is the “Little Old Lady” of International Crimes? Nils Christie’s Concept of the Ideal Victim Reinterpreted’, (2013) 19 International Review of Victimology 159, at 162–7.
55 Ibid., at 167.
56 See Christie, supra note 20, at 19.
57 A. Rudling, ‘“I’m Not That Chained-Up Little Person”: Four Paragons of Victimhood in Transitional Justice Discourse’, (2019) 41 Human Rights Quarterly 421, at 425; C. Schwöbel-Patel, ‘The “Ideal” Victim of International Criminal Law’, (2018) 29 European Journal of International Law 703, at 710; E. Bouris, Complex Political Victims (2007), 36.
58 A. Orford, Reading Humanitarian Intervention: Human Rights and the Use of Force in International Law (2003), 66.
59 K. M. Franke, ‘Gendered Subject of Transitional Justice’, (2006) 15 Columbia Journal of Gender and Law 813, at 823.
60 Prosecutor v. Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (‘Ali Kushayb’), Decision on the Confirmation of Charges against Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (‘Ali Kushayb’), ICC-02/05-01/20, Pre-Trial Chamber II, 9 July 2021.
61 Prosecutor v. Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (‘Ali Kushayb’), Case Information Sheet, ICC-02/05-01/20, 11 May 2023.
62 See Prosecutor v Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (‘Ali Kushayb’), supra note 1, at 11.
63 Ibid.
64 Ibid., at 12.
65 Ibid.
66 Ibid., at 13.
67 Ibid., at 12.
68 Ibid., at 13.
69 Ibid., at 22.
70 Ibid., at 21–2.
71 See Orford, supra note 58, at 66.
72 See Rudling, supra note 57, at 426.
73 Ibid., at 427.
74 See Bouris, supra note 57, at 36.
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76 C. Dolan, ‘Victims Who Are Men’, in F. Ní Aoláin et al. (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Gender and Conflict (2017), vol. 1, 86, at 93.
77 V. Oosterveld, ‘The Construction of Gender in Child Soldiering in the Special Court for Sierra Leone’, in M. A. Drumbl and J. C. Barrett (eds.), Research Handbook on Child Soldiers (2019), 74, at 75.
78 V. Oosterveld, ‘Sexual Violence Directed Against Men and Boys in Armed Conflict or Mass Atrocity: Addressing a Gendered Harm in International Criminal’, (2014) 10 Journal of International Law and International Relations 107, at 109.
79 Ibid., at 119; see Sivakumaran, supra note 75, at 255.
80 See Oosterveld, supra note 78, at 123.
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82 O. Aijazi and E. Baines, ‘Relationality, Culpability and Consent in Wartime: Men’s Experiences of Forced Marriage’, (2017) 11 International Journal of Transitional Justice 463, at 467.
83 M. Denov et al., ‘Complex Perpetrators: Forced Marriage, Family and Fatherhood in the Lord’s Resistance Army’, (2019) 94 Revista de Historia Jerónimo Zurita 139, at 148. See also M. Denov and A. Cadieux van Vliet, ‘Children Born of Wartime Rape on Fatherhood: Grappling with Violence, Accountability, and Forgiveness in Postwar Northern Uganda’, (2021) 27 Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 597.
84 See Aijazi, Amony and Baines, supra note 81, at 101; Denov and Drumbl, supra note 81, at 357.
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86 See Denov and Drumbl, ibid., at 360.
87 See Aijazi and Baines, supra note 82, at 478.
88 Ibid., at 472; see Denov and Drumbl, supra note 81, at 357.
89 See Aijazi, Amony and Baines, supra note 81, at 100.
90 See Denov and Drumbl, supra note 81, at 358.
91 Ibid., at 367.
92 M. E. Wolfgang, ‘Victim Precipitated Criminal Homicide’, (1957) 48 Journal of Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science 1, at 1–2. See also M. E. Wolfgang, Patterns in Criminal Homicide (1958).
93 D. A. Timmer and W. H. Norman, ‘The ideology of victim precipitation’, (1984) 9 Criminal Justice Review 63, at 65. See also J. M. Sgarzi and J. McDevitt, Victimology: A Study of Crime Victims and Their Roles (2002).
94 See van Wijk, supra note 54, at 163.
95 See Prosecutor v. Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (‘Ali Kushayb’), supra note 1, at 15.
96 Ibid., at 20.
97 Ibid., at 27.
98 D. Tietjens Meyers, Victims’ Stories and The Advancement of Human Rights (2016), 34–5.
99 See Bouris, supra note 57, at 42.
100 See Rudling, supra note 57, at 427.
101 P. Massidda, ‘Retributive and Restorative Justice for Victims and Reconciliation: Considerations on the Lubanga Case before the ICC’, (2015) 1 Peace Processes Online Review 1, at 4.
102 S. von Schorlemer, ‘Human Rights: Substantive and Institutional Implications of the War against Terrorism’ (2003), 14 European Journal of International Law 265, at 270.
103 See Rudling, supra note 57, at 426.
104 See Moffett, supra note 22, at 11.
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106 See McCarthy, supra note 35, at 366.
107 See Schwöbel-Patel, supra note 57, at 713; Rudling, supra note 57, at 429.
108 See Rudling, ibid., at 428.
109 See Schwöbel-Patel, supra note 57, at 715.
110 K. M. Clarke, ‘The Rule of Law through Its Economies of Appearances: The Making of the African Warlord’, (2011) 18 Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 7, at 11.
111 See Prosecutor v. Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (‘Ali Kushayb’), supra note 1, at 24.
112 J. Doak, ‘The Therapeutic Dimension of Transitional Justice: Emotional Repair and Victim Satisfaction in International Trials and Truth Commissions’, (2011) 11 International Criminal Law Review 263, at 265.
113 See Prosecutor v. Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (‘Ali Kushayb’), supra note 1, at 79.
114 C. Gilligan, ‘Constant Crisis/Permanent Process: Diminished Agency and Weak Structures in the Northern Ireland Peace Process’, (2003) 3 Global Review of Ethnopolitics 22, at 30.
115 T. Govier, Victims and Victimhood (2015), 5.
116 See Prosecutor v. Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (‘Ali Kushayb’), supra note 1, at 10.
117 See McEvoy and McConnachie, supra note 12, at 489.
118 J. Subotić, ‘The Transformation of International Transitional Justice Advocacy’, (2012) 6 International Journal of Transitional Justice 106, at 121; L. E. Fletcher, H. M. Weinstein and J. Rowen, ‘Context, Timing and the Dynamics of Transitional Justice: A Historical Perspective’, (2009) 31 Human Rights Quarterly 163, at 214.
119 M. Koskenniemi, ‘“The Lady Doth Protest Too Much” Kosovo, and the Turn to Ethics in International Law’, (2002) 65 Modern Law Review 159, at 173.
120 Ibid., at 174.
121 See Rudling, supra note 57, at 431; T. Madlingozi, ‘On Transitional Justice Entrepreneurs and the Production of Victims’, (2010) 2 Journal of Human Rights Practice 208, at 211.
122 Assembly of States Parties, Court’s Revised Strategy in Relation to Victims, ICC-ASP/11/38 (2012), available at asp.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/asp_docs/ASP11/ICC-ASP-11-38-ENG.pdf, para. 10.
123 Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Opening Statement, ICC-0104-0106, 26 January 2009, at 41.
124 The Office of the Prosecutor, Policy Paper on Victims’ Participation (2010), at 1.
125 S. H. Song, ‘Address by Judge Sang-Hyun Song, President of the International Criminal Court to the United Nations General Assembly’, 26 October 2011, at 4, available at www.icc-cpi.int/news/address-judge-sang-hyun-song-president-international-criminal-court-united-nations-general. See also ICC Press Release, ‘ICC Launches Commemorations for 17 July International Criminal Justice Day’, 6 July 2012, available at asp.icc-cpi.int/press-releases/pr822.
126 ICC Press Release, ‘ICC Prosecutor Visits Egypt and Saudi Arabia’, 9 May 2008, available at www.icc-cpi.int/news/icc-prosecutor-visits-egypt-and-saudi-arabia.
127 ICC Press Release, ‘Statement to the Press by the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, 20 July 2013)’, 20 July 2013, available at www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-press-prosecutor-international-criminal-court-abidjan-cote-divoire-20-july-2013.
128 K. A. A. Khan, ‘Statement of ICC Prosecutor, Karim A. A. Khan KC, to the United Nations Security Council on the Situation in Darfur, Pursuant to Resolution 1593 (2005)’, 26 January 2023, available at www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-khan-kc-united-nations-security-council-situation-darfur.
129 See Stahn, supra note 13, at 287.
130 See Haslam, supra note 5, at 320.
131 See De Hemptinne and Jorda, supra note 5, at 1394–5.
132 Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Decision on the Confirmation of Charges, ICC-01/04-01/06, Pre-Trial Chamber II, 29 January 2007, para. 156.
133 ASF, Center for Justice and Reconciliation, DRC Coalition for the ICC, FIDH, HRW, REDRESS, and the Women’s Initiative for Gender Justice, ‘DR Congo: ICC Charges Raise Concern, Joint Letter to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court’, 31 July 2006, available at www.hrw.org/news/2006/07/31/dr-congo-icc-charges-raise-concern.
134 K. A. Annan, ‘Letter Dated 16 July 2004 from the Secretary-General Addressed to the President of the Security Council’, July 2004, available at https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/527418, para. 80; UN General Assembly, Report of the International Criminal Court, A/60/177 (2005), para. 37; Assembly of States Parties, Report on the Activities of the Court, ICC-ASP/4/16 (2005), para. 53; Amnesty International, Democratic Republic of Congo – Mass Rape: Time for Remedies, AFR 62/018/2004 (2004), available at amnesty.org/en/documents/afr62/018/2004/en/; Human Rights Watch, ‘Seeking Justice: The Prosecution of Sexual Violence in the Congo War’, 2005, available at hrw.org/reports/2005/drc0305/drc0305.pdf.
135 Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Judgment pursuant to Article 74 of the Statute, ICC-01/04–01/06, Trial Chamber I, 14 March 2012, paras. 630–631.
136 Situation in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Decision Pursuant to Article 15 of the Rome Statute on the Authorisation of an Investigation into the Situation in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, ICC-02/17-33, Pre-Trial Chamber II, 12 April 2019, para. 96.
137 Ibid., para. 88.
138 Ibid., para. 89.
139 Ibid.
140 Ibid., para. 96.
141 Situation in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Victims’ Notice of Appeal of the ‘Decision Pursuant to Article 15 of the Rome Statute on the Authorisation of an Investigation into the Situation in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan’, ICC-02/17-38, Legal Representative of Victims, 10 June 2019, para. 22.
142 Situation in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Concurring and Separate Opinion of Judge Antoine Kesia-Mbe Mindua, ICC-02/17-33, Pre-Trial Chamber II, 12 April 2019, para. 53.
143 See Massidda, supra note 101, at 4.
144 See Moffett, supra note 22, at 10.
145 See Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, supra note 6, Art. 7.
146 Ibid., Art. 6.
147 Ibid., Art. 8.
148 See Sloane, supra note 23, at 7.
149 S. Kendall and S. Nouwen, ‘Representational Practices at the International Criminal Court: The Gap between Juridified and Abstract Victimhood’, (2013) 76 Law and Contemporary Problems 235, at 254.
150 P. Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power (1991), 208.
151 S. Nouwen, ‘Justifying Justice’, in J. Crawford and M. Koskenniemi (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to International Law (2012), 327, at 340.
152 M. Mutua, Human Rights: A Political and Cultural Critique (2002), 38.
153 Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice, ‘Statement by the Women’s Initiatives for Gender Justice on the Opening of the ICC Trial of Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo’, 2010, at 4, available at www.iccwomen.org/documents/Bemba_Opening_Statement.pdf.pdf.
154 Prosecutor v. Abdallah Banda Abakaer Nourain and Saleh Mohammed Jerbo Jamus, Order Inviting the Registrar to Appoint a Common Legal Representative, ICC-02/05-03/09, Trial Chamber IV, 6 September 2011.
155 Prosecutor v. Abdallah Banda Abakaer Nourain and Saleh Mohammed Jerbo Jamus, Decision on Common Legal Representation, ICC-02/05-03/09, Trial Chamber IV, 25 May 2012, para. 34.
156 E. Haslam and R. Edmunds, ‘Common Legal Representation at the International Criminal Court: More Symbolic than Real?’, (2012) 12 International Criminal Law Review 871, at 888.
157 Prosecutor v. Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo Chui, Order on the Organisation of Common Legal Representation of Victims, ICC-01/04-01/07, Trial Chamber II, 22 July 2009, paras. 10–11. See also Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, Decision on Common Legal Representation of Victims for the Purpose of Trial, ICC-01/05-01/08, Trial Chamber III, 11 November 2010, para. 15; Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo, Corrigendum to Decision on the Participation of Victims in the Trial and on 86 Applications by Victims to Participate in the Proceedings, ICC-01/05-01/08, Trial Chamber III, 12 July 2010, para. 47.
158 R. Killean and L. Moffett, ‘Victim Legal Representation before the ICC and ECCC’, (2017) 15 Journal of International Criminal Justice 713, at 738.
159 See Kendall and Nouwen, supra note 149, at 250.
160 B. Latour, Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory (2007), 39.
161 A. Pemberton, P. G. M. Aarten and E. Mulder, ‘Stories as Property: Narrative Ownership as a Key Concept in Victims’ Experiences with Criminal Justice’, (2019) 19 Criminology & Criminal Justice 404, at 410.
162 M. A. Drumbl, ‘Victims Who Victimize’, (2016) 4 London Review of International Law 217, at 242.
163 Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, Judgment pursuant to Article 74 of the Statute, ICC-01/04-01/06, Trial Chamber II, 14 March 2012, para. 1358.
164 See Prosecutor v. Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, supra note 123, at 35.
165 Ibid., at 56.
166 Ibid., at 58.
167 Ibid., at 56.
168 See Drumbl, supra note 162, at 242.
169 Prosecutor v. Dominic Ongwen, Trial Judgment, ICC-02/04-01/15, Trial Chamber IX, 4 February 2021, para. 3116.
170 Prosecutor v. Dominic Ongwen, Further Redacted Version of ‘Defence Brief for the Confirmation of Charges Hearing’, filed on 18 January 2016, ICC-02/04-01/15, Pre-Trial Chamber II, 3 March 2016, para. 4.
171 Prosecutor v. Dominic Ongwen, Decision on the Confirmation of Charges against Dominic Ongwen, ICC-0204-0115, Pre-Trial Chamber II, 23 March 2016, para. 154.
172 See Drumbl, supra note 162, at 240.
173 D. Buss, ‘Knowing Women: Translating Patriarchy in International Criminal Law’, (2014) 23 Social & Legal Studies 73, at 75.
174 See Orford, supra note 58, at 66.