The anthropological dimension of international crimes and international criminal justice

Abstract

As the chapter goes on to demonstrate, our understanding of a particular culture prior to the outbreak of hostilities or mass human rights violations serves numerous purposes which for the most part have been outside the radar of contemporary international criminal tribunals and their respective mandates. At a functional level, anthropology may tell us what the affected societies aspire to and what they think about international criminal justice, which in turn should shape – not necessarily dictate – the international community’s relevant transitional justice policies. This aside, culture paints a fairly accurate picture as regards hierarchies, membership and affiliation in clans and kinship mechanisms, which in turn helps determine complex liabilities, such as command responsibility and joint criminal enterprise JCE), among others. Moreover, anthropological observation helps us decipher the contextual meaning of concepts that verge between the social and the natural sciences, such as race, ethnicity and gender, by means of their social construction. This chapter paves the way for the realisation of the crucial function of anthropology in the investigation of mass crimes and the need for specialist research alongside legal developments.