The ‘Butcher’: A Sociolegal Analysis of a Conflict-Related Metaphor

• In Event: Atrocity Crimes: New Approaches in the Analysis and Teaching of Atrocity Crimes (ECACTJ)

Abstract

In every conflict, there is at least one protagonist who is called a ‘butcher’: Klaus Barbie, the ‘Butcher of Lyon’; Ta Mok from the Khmer Rouge, the ‘Butcher of Cambodia’. Ratko Mladic was the ‘Butcher of Bosnia’, while Radovan Karadžić and Slobodan Milošević both were ‘Butcher of the Balkans’. Charles Taylor was termed the ‘Butcher of Monrovia’.

This paper examines the metaphorical use of ‘butcher’ in the context of armed conflicts and genocides. Metaphors are figures of speech by which the characteristics of one thing are assigned to another thing that resembles it. Applied to the butcher metaphor, we assign the actions of a professional butcher to the actions of an individual who kills other people. The paper examines whether and how international(ised) criminal tribunals discuss and integrate the ‘butcher’ metaphor in their jurisprudence, thereby assigning it legal value. The paper covers all adjudicated cases of the past 80 years, starting with Nuremberg and ending with the International Criminal Court, thereby providing comparative aspects across different conflicts and periods.

The paper draws on legal, criminological, linguistic, and psychological research, especially the conceptual metaphor theory. The analysis reveals that witnesses often use the metaphor, which is stereotypically gendered and not only has negative connotations.

Author

• Carola Lingaas, VID Specialized University, Oslo, Norway