The Indeterminacy of Precedent : Negotiating the Admissibility of Victim Participant Testimony before the International Criminal Court
Abstract The icc represents a legal laboratory that is still consolidating itself, with multiple unclarities in evidence and procedural law requiring resolution through jurisprudence. Our paper draws on interaction analysis to unpack this process, focusing on the jurisprudential construction of ‘dual status’ victim participant testimony. To elucidate how this evidentiary/procedural element is locally negotiated, we examine an excerpt from the Ongwen hearing transcripts, in which the defense objects against the testimony by a dual status witness called by the victim participants’ legal representative. The analysis traces how the defense counsel’s objection is anchored in a trajectory of prio…
Evidence About Harm: Dual Status Victim Participant Testimony at the International Criminal Court and the Straitjacketing of Narratives About Suffering
AbstractAlthough victims at the International Criminal Court (ICC) are not parties, they can apply to become “victim participants” and may be authorized by an ICC Chamber to directly and orally express their views and concerns in court. Most ICC Trial Chambers, however, have preferred allowing legal representatives of these victim participants to call victims as witnesses to give testimonial evidence about the harm they suffered. Our article focuses on the practical-epistemological challenges that come with forcing accounts of harm into this testimony-format. We draw upon ethnomethodology and conversation analysis to elucidate the discursive techniques by which legal actors in the Ongwen tr…