Critical stasis and disruptive performances: ICJ and the Anwar R trial in Koblenz

Abstract

This article explores the extraterritorial criminal court case against Anwar R, a high-ranking member of the Syrian regime on trial for crimes against humanity in Koblenz, Germany. Empirically anchored in ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Koblenz and with the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, the article illuminates the trial as a ‘disruptive performance’. The case against Anwar R punctuates two instances of negative stasis and unsettles two accounts of chronicity, namely, those of the Syrian conflict and of the field of international criminal justice. In order to illuminate the trial as a disruptive performance, the article empirically situates the Koblenz case both in relation to the Syrian war that it relates to, to the international criminal justice apparatus that it is a part of and to the underlying compilation of evidence that substantiates it. It thus clarifies both the symbolic potential and the constitutive process that has brought it into being.

The standardisation of transitional justice

“…Efforts to bring justice in the Syrian conflict are externally based due to the absence of government engagement. Diaspora organisations campaign for accountability and truth, foreign justice systems prosecute atrocity crimes and international members of the IIIM collect evidence for later use (Koleva and Vigh, 2021; Stokke and Wiebelhaus-Brahm, 2019). Syrian efforts illustrate that localisation may be independent of the concrete locality of the conflict and the transitional status of the situation.…”

Justice Sites and the Fight against Atrocity Crimes

“…Often, this specialized role builds on the flexibility of these justice sites in terms of global mobility, a flexible workforce, and the ability to work across geography and jurisdictions, something that is often aided by their formal rules often not being as rigid as those of large judicial bureaucracies such as the ICC. For instance, evidence processed by the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA), an atypical NGO staffed with former investigators registered in The Netherlands and funded mainly by European Union (EU) countries, supported the first atrocity crimes case against Syrian officials in the court in Koblenz, Germany (Koleva and Vigh 2021). This production of evidence relied on collaboration with individuals working within Syria who helped smuggle evidence out of the country, often at significant personal risk.…”

Theatrics of transnational criminal justice: Ethnographies of penality in a global age

“…Speaking of international criminal law trials in national courtrooms, Koleva and Vigh (2021) probe how the extraterritorial criminal court case against Anwar R, a high-ranking member of the Syrian regime on trial for crimes against humanity in Koblenz, Germany, is a 'disruptive performance' of international criminal justice. Building on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Koblenz and, specifically, with the Commission for International Justice and Accountability, Koleva and Vigh discuss how the case against Anwar R 'punctuates two instances of negative stasis and unsettles two accounts of chronicity, namely, those of the Syrian conflict and of the field of international criminal justice' (2021: 1, this issue, p. 1).…”

“…First of all, if it predominantly becomes a performance which only believes in it itself without in any way resonating in its intended audience, it loses its effectiveness and legitimacy. Second, if it, as both Koleva and Vigh (2021) and Sausdal (2021) touch upon, is also a performance that is not truly believed in by the performers themselves, but 'only imagined to be believed in', it not only runs the risk of losing its audience-it risks losing itself. Though we do not claim that this is happening at the moment, we do wonder whether the theatrics of transnational criminal justice are examples of a real drama at play or, rather, of a growing desperation.…”