Session 3: Criminal Justice Processes 1 – Commencement and Conclusion
"I WANT ALL WAR CRIMINALS PERSECUTED!" Exploring the Social Media Response to an Article 15 Communication
Natalie Hodgson, University of Nottingham
Hodgson’s paper concerned an Article 15 communication made by Australian Senator Jacqui Lambie to the ICC Prosecutor concerning the responsibility of senior Australian military commanders for the war crimes committed by their subordinates in Afghanistan.
Chair: Jennifer Giblin, Edge Hill University
Panel Report by: Rasara Jayasuriya and Gbemi Akinyosoye
Key themes: practical issues surrounding criminal justice processes, including victim participation in justice and public opinions of the international courts.
Hodgson discussed how Article 15 communications are unofficially used as part of a broader advocacy strategy, to attract media and public attention and to advocate for political and social action. She mentioned that the strategic use of Article 15 communications might pose challenges for the ICC, such as by inflating expectations of the public that an investigation may be commenced, and emphasised that we need more research to understand the impact of this form of advocacy.
Hodgson used the social media platform X (Twitter) to analyze what people thought of the Article 15 communication made by Lambie. She noted that people expressed a range of views, both agreeing and disagreeing with Lambie’s actions. Hodgson suggested that making an Article 15 communication doesn’t necessarily inflate or raise expectations of the general public because many people held the view that ICC would not take action subsequent to Lambie’s communication. Hodgson identified room for further research into the consequences of a prosecutor deciding not to initiate a preliminary examination on public opinion or an Article 15 Communication.
“I found Natalie’s discussion to be highly relevant, considering that Social Media platforms have become a crucial tool for shaping public opinion and bringing about legal and social reforms. It would also be interesting to extend Natalie’s study to other social media platforms such as Facebook.”
Early Release in International Criminal Law
Róisín Mulgrew, University of Galway and Irish Centre for Human Rights
Mulgrew’s presentation, based on her forthcoming book, looked at the evolving forms of release systems, from unconditional to conditional release and sentence reduction. Previously, nearly all convicted persons were deemed successfully rehabilitated and able to be released, even when they denied their crime or failed to show remorse. There was then a paradigmatic shift from this extreme of everyone being rehabilitated, to the other extreme. Now, there is a presumption against release and there is an enumerated list of indicators to prove remorse: the person’s conduct must demonstrate genuine dissociation from the crime, there must be resocialisation and genuine prospects for their resettlement, and they must do post-conviction acts for the victim’s benefit.
A concern with these increasingly specific requirements is that a convicted person could follow the ‘script’ without being genuinely remorseful and still be granted early release. Victims are often very disappointed with the sentences that perpetrators get, and early release here will likely be even more disappointing. Whilst victims are supposed to be central to international criminal justice, Mulgrew shows how their views are given limited weight in reality. For instance, some might think that the UN Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals (MICT) offers only tokenistic engagement with victims. To give victims more opportunity to participate in release decision-making, Mulgrew suggests that they could have more influence on the delay of release, or the imposition of particular conditions.
“I enjoyed hearing about what happens after the sentencing, this was a very new experience since all my studies in ICL have so far been on what happens up to conviction but not after. It was surprising to learn how common early release was, considering the severity of the crimes that are convicted at the international courts, and it challenged my mindset to hear about rehabilitation outside of a retributive lens. I found it particularly interesting how the pendulum has swung from one extreme of early release happening all the time to it never happening, and this has motivated me to look further into early release mechanisms to see how they change more in future.”
Criminal Justice in Northern Uganda
Olympia Bekou, University of Nottingham
Bekou addressed the ongoing efforts to promote access to justice in Northern Uganda. Her discussion was centred around the fieldwork that she has done in Northern Ugandan over the past few years. Bekou stated that calls for justice in Uganda have become louder than ever in a post-conflict context where there are women and girls being disproportionately targeted, high volumes of gender based violence against girls and women and the increase in domestic violence as an indirect result of Covid-19.
Quote“I found it inspiring to hear that Professor Bekou has advocated for creating a Women Grassroots leaders task force in Uganda. It would be interesting to apply the lesson learned from Uganda to other conflicts such as Ukraine and Gaza.”
Bekou highlighted that there is a tension between formal justice and informal justice. For instance, formal justice is not easily accessible to many survivors because English which is the language used in Courts is not taught in schools. On the contrary, informal justice mechanisms such as traditional justice can guarantee cultural justice even though it may not always guarantee legal justice.
Bekou noted how women survivor leaders in Uganda can play a significant role in bridging the gap between policy makers and survivors by being involved in policy making and decision making. However, she also mentioned that while there is a policy framework consisting of a National Policy on Transitional Justice, National Policy on the Elimination of Gender Based Violence and a National Action Plan on Women, Peace and Security, there are some gaps in the implementation of these policies.
“Considering the practical issues of international courts that all presentations discussed, I appreciated learning about alternate solutions and having to think outside of the formal courts and processes to achieve justice. The discussions on victims in these presentations also helped me to better understand the gap between international criminal justice at the ICC and other international courts, and how it is actually experienced by survivors. I am interested in seeing how the lessons learnt from transitional justice in Uganda can be shared for other conflicts, and how cultural contexts can be considered more often in justice. Like the previous presentation, this makes it evident that to achieve tangible justice, the voices of survivors must be heard.”