The trial’s the thing: Performance and legitimacy in international criminal trials

Abstract

This article explores the relationship between performance and legitimacy in international criminal trials through the lens of the International Criminal Court (ICC). I begin by analysing the deployment of theatrical tropes by different legal scholars, such as Hannah Arendt, and David Luban, arguing that such analogies serve as a policing mechanism for the author to distinguish what they perceive to be the ‘good’ or ‘bad’ theatre of the trial. I then move beyond analogy, drawing on legal sociology and performance theory to read the criminal trial as ritual-like, normative performance. Using the ICC as a case study, I will examine how performance is deployed to create, reinforce and naturalize the role of the ICC in international criminal law. Through focusing on issues of performance and community I offer a different way of looking at what may constitute legitimacy in international criminal law from that which is offered by other legal scholars.