Foreword

Abstract

The recognition in the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and that of other internationalized criminal tribunals, of victims, not just as witnesses or mere observers, but as participants in the proceedings was without doubt a momentous advance in the field of international criminal law. It marked a shift, not just of a view towards the victims, but in the nature of the proceedings as had been practiced thus far before international criminal tribunals. The regime adopted by the ICC, and latterly copied in part by other tribunals in relation to victim’s participation, is the promise of justice for, not just with, the victims. Prior to the signing of the Rome Statute, victims had either been ignored altogether by international criminal tribunals or their role restricted to the status of witnesses. In that capacity, victims were dependent on the prosecution’s strategies and on its decision to make them a part of its case. The practical effect of the ICC Statute's victims’ provisions, and other similar regimes, is effectively to liberate victims from the tutelage of the parties to the proceedings and might augur the end of what has sometimes been perceived as their instrumentalization of victims. After the ICC, victims are to be actors in a process in which they can play an important part, not just a passive evidential supporting role as had been assigned to them.