The Metaphors of Causation or a Conflict of Concepts in International Criminal Justice

Abstract

This draft paper addresses the problematic relationship between the concept of causation and the use of tropes, that is, metaphors, metonymies and other figures of speech in international criminal trials and jurisprudence. The use of metaphors, for instance, shows that specific instruments of language can be employed in an inappropriate manner as part of the process of analytical and deliberative reasoning. Based on specific legal requirements, such as those found in speech-related crimes, metaphors used in judgments do not clarify or explain the various forms of causal relations between the evidence and the criminal acts. As a matter of fact, the use of metaphors, as found in judicial records, only indicates an evidentiary and logical vacuum in legal analysis and deliberations. This author demonstrates that the currently available jurisprudence and trial records of the International Military Tribunal (IMT), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), all testify to that effect. The analytical models presented in this working paper, based on both theory and practice in international criminal trials, offer a novel step toward an improved, philosophical and pronouncedly cognitive scientific interpretation of the forms of evidence involving the element of causation in primarily speech-related international criminal cases.