Roundtable: Sights, Sounds, and Sensibilities of Atrocity Prosecutions

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

This Roundtable will have a flexible format to discuss a volume co-edited by Mark Drumbl and Caroline Fournet: Sights, Sounds, and Sensibilities of Atrocity Prosecutions (Brill, 2024). The Roundtable will include the two editors, who will present an overview of the book; one of the volume’s contributors; and three external expert discussants.
The discussion will address the overarching question raised in the edited volume: How does international criminal justice interact with the human senses – sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch – when it comes to perceiving mass atrocity and thereafter holding perpetrators accountable? The participants will explore the dynamics of the five human senses in how atrocity is perceived, remembered, and condemned. They will reimagine what an atrocity means, reconsider what drives the manufacture of law, and reboot the role of courtrooms and other mechanisms in the pursuit of justice. They will consider how law translates sensory experience into its procedures and institutions, and how humanistic inputs shape perceptions of right and wrong. The Roundtable will thus offer new insights into the underappreciated role of aesthetics, time, and emotion in the world of law.

Subtopic

• Topic 2: Types of Offending / Genocide, Crimes Against Humanity, War Crimes (Atrocity Crimes and Transitional Justice WG)

Chairs

• Caroline Fournet, University of Exeter, Law School

• Mark A. Drumbl, Washington & Lee University

Discussants

• Marina Aksenova, IE University

• Stephan Parmentier, KU Leuven

• Carola Lingaas, VID Specialized University, Oslo, Norway

• Adina-Loredana Nistor, Faculty of Law, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (The Netherlands)