The Victim, the International Criminal Court and the Search for Truth

Abstract

In the debate on the place of victims in international criminal proceedings, the 'search for truth' takes centre stage as an important concern of victims, international criminal tribunals and the wider international community. However, the various claims about the importance of telling and receiving the truth for different parties at such tribunals often fail to enquire into the implications and complications of combining different aspirations to truth at the specific stage of an international criminal trial. In light of the embracement of a 'victim-centred' approach at the International Criminal Court (ICC), a discourse emerges in which the search for truth appears to be a multidirectional effort. The complex web of truth-exchanges and conceptions of truth-telling at the ICC is marked by both an interdependence and an incompatibility between the court's and the victims' search for truth. By scrutinizing the invocation of three important ways in which this search for truth is operationalized at the court, namely through the provision of information, contextualization and acknowledgment, this article shows that the relationship between the victim, the truth and the ICC is mutually reinforcing yet also mutually disruptive.