Abstract
AbstractThe potential of international criminal trials to express the wrongfulness of mass atrocities and instil norms of appropriate behaviour within communities has been subject to a lively theoretical debate. This article makes an important empirical contribution by examining the limitations to the expressivist aspiration of international criminal justice in the context of the message communicated by the International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor (ICC-OTP) in the Ongwen case. A detailed analysis of the selection of charges, modes of liability, and the overall presentation of the Prosecutor’s arguments at trial suggests that the ICC-OTP’s limited capabilities to apprehend suspects and its dependency on state co-operation risk the excessive stigmatization of the few defendants available for trial for the purpose of demonstrating the Court’s capability of prosecuting notorious criminals. As the only apprehended commander from the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), Dominic Ongwen has been presented by the ICC-OTP as the ‘cause’ of crimes committed in Northern Uganda without due regard for the degree of his alleged involvement in those crimes compared to other LRA commanders, the role of other actors in the conflict, or the significance of his own victimization as a child. Ongwen’s excessive stigmatization expressed the importance of the Ugandan investigation after a decade of showing no results. Yet, it also produced a simplistic narrative which failed to express the complexity of violence in Northern Uganda.
Highlights
In 2018, the International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor (ICC-OTP) closed its arguments in one of its most notorious cases1 – the case against Dominic Ongwen, former brigade commander of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which had been operating for decades in Northern Uganda
Even though Ongwen had himself been victimized by the LRA as a child, the Prosecutor’s case presented him as one of the most cruel perpetrators tried at the International Criminal Court (ICC or the Court)
Based on a comprehensive analysis of the charges, the modes of liability and the overall Prosecutor’s case narrative in Ongwen, this article suggests that the limited possibilities for apprehending suspects and the dependency on government co-operation for investigations have resulted in the excessive stigmatization of Ongwen as the ‘cause’ of crimes committed in Northern Uganda
Summary
In 2018, the ICC-OTP closed its arguments in one of its most notorious cases1 – the case against Dominic Ongwen, former brigade commander of the LRA, which had been operating for decades in Northern Uganda. Based on a comprehensive analysis of the charges, the modes of liability and the overall Prosecutor’s case narrative in Ongwen, this article suggests that the limited possibilities for apprehending suspects and the dependency on government co-operation for investigations have resulted in the excessive stigmatization of Ongwen as the ‘cause’ of crimes committed in Northern Uganda This has occurred without due regard for the degree of his alleged involvement in those crimes compared to other LRA commanders, or the role of other actors in the conflict, 11L. The article is structured as follows: Section 2 engages with the literature on ICL’s expressivist aspirations; Section 3 discusses the ICC-OTP’s institutional need to demonstrate the importance of its work; Section 4 examines the excessive dehumanization and its implications in Ongwen in terms of the number of charges against the accused, the characterization of his criminal responsibility, and the negation of Ongwen’s past victimization, highlighting the seeming influence of the ICC’s sociopolitical environment on the Prosecutor’s case; and Section 5 concludes. By illuminating the significant challenges to obtaining expressivism in a meaningful sense in ICL, this article calls for greater sensitivity to the messages that are being communicated through international trials
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