This book addresses the discursive importance of the prosecution’s opening statement before an international criminal tribunal. Opening statements are considered to be largely irrelevant to the official legal proceedings but are simultaneously deployed to frame important historical events. They are widely cited in international media as well as academic texts; yet have been ignored by legal scholars as objects of study in their own right. This book aims to remedy this neglect, by analysing the narrative that is articulated in the opening statements of different prosecutors at different tribunals in different times. It takes an interdisciplinary approach and looks at the meaning of the opening narrative beyond its function in the legal process in a strict sense, discussing the ways in which the trial is situated in time and space and how it portrays the main characters. It shows how perpetrators and victims, places and histories, are juridified in a narrative that, whilst purporting to legitimise the trial, the tribunal and international criminal law itself, is beset with tensions and contradictions. Providing an original perspective on the operation of international criminal law, this book will be of considerable interest to those working in this area, as well as those with relevant interests in International/Transnational Law more generally, Critical Legal Studies, Law and Literature, Socio-Legal Studies, Law and Geography and International Relations.

Contains the trial proceedings of the International Criminal Court, the ICTY and the ICTR in one single volume. This book covers the procedural and evidentiary aspects of the trials before the ICC from the beginning of an investigation until the time the convict has served the sentence and it includes ICTY and ICTR precedents.

This major reference work identifies and crystallizes the common rules and principles underlying international criminal procedure, as developed by international courts and tribunals since the Second World War. It covers the whole of the international criminal process, from initial investigations to the role of victims and the final appeal.

International and national armed conflicts are usually preceded by a media campaign in which public figures foment ethnic, national, racial or religious hatred, inciting listeners to acts of violence. Incitement on Trial evaluates the efforts of international criminal tribunals to hold such inciters criminally responsible. This is an unsettled area of international criminal law, and prosecutors have often struggled to demonstrate a causal connection between speech acts and subsequent crimes. This book identifies 'revenge speech' as the type of rhetoric with the greatest effects on empathy and tolerance for violence. Wilson argues that inciting speech should be handled under the preventative doctrine of inchoate crimes, but that once international crimes have been committed, then ordering and complicity are the most appropriate forms of criminal liability. Based in extensive original research, this book proposes an evidence-based risk assessment model for monitoring political speech.

This volume examines the prosecution as an institution and a function in a dozen international and hybrid criminal tribunals, from Nuremberg to the International Criminal Court. It is the result of a sustained collaborative effort among some twenty scholars and (former) tribunal staffers. The starting point is that the prosecution shapes a tribunal's practice and legacy more than any other organ and that a systematic examination of international prosecutors is therefore warranted. The chapters are organized chronologically, according to the successive phases of the life of the institution and the various stages of the trials. The analysis includes each institution's establishment, mandate and jurisdiction, as well as the prosecutorial framework and strategy, the prosecutor's external relations and the completion of the institution's work. The book also considers the prosecutors' independence and impartiality, and their accountability for their decisions. The volume thus provides a comprehensive picture of the mandate, organization, and operation of the prosecution in international criminal trials. As the first comprehensive study of an international legal actor whose decisions have widespread political repercussions, this book will be essential reading for all with an interest in international criminal justice.