James E. K. Parker, Acoustic Jurisprudence

Abstract

Think of those facing trial at international criminal tribunals for genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes: generals, political leaders or even heads of state; but folk singers? The case of Simon Bikindi, the Rwandan wedding singer turned folk star, serves as something of an anomaly in the cast of those appearing before international tribunals, and this outlier status has led to significant academic interest in Bikindi’s case. Nevertheless, James E. K. Parker claims to address a gap in legal scholarship by using Bikindi’s case as the backbone in his bold new book ‘Acoustic Jurisprudence: listening to the trial of Simon Bikindi’. Whilst Bikindi’s trial on charges of direct and public incitement to commit genocide has, since its beginning, fascinated the international criminal law community, never before has Bikindi’s case been assessed from the point of the view of the ‘acoustic’, as Parker’s book attempts. Acoustic Jurisprudence borrows liberally from fields as diverse as musicology, philosophy, engineering, anthropology, linguistics and history in its approach to sound. Indeed, one is struck by the scope of reference employed by Parker, ranging from Greek mythology to the technological specification of the microphones used by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), exemplifying the detailed research that pervades this work.