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

This article contributes to border criminology and transnational criminal justice research into the role of transnational actors in shaping practices of global justice, punishment and control, as well as to the criminological analysis of penal technologies. I examine the performative effects of the Migration Information and Data Analysis System (MIDAS) developed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), and I argue that these effects are multidimensional. For beneficiary states, the deployment of MIDAS constitutes a performance of sovereign territorial power, affirming membership in the international society of (biometrically capable) states. For the IOM, the development and deployment of MIDAS and carrying out training sessions operate as pedagogical interventions legitimizing the organization as a neutral, technical expert of migration management. Finally, MIDAS itself performatively acts upon its targets, constituting ‘the migrant’ as a governable, potentially risky subject and constituting ‘migration’ as a problem amenable to depoliticized techno-solutionist interventions.

Section: Southern Agency and Biometric Statehoodmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biometric statehood, transnational solutionism and security devices: The performative dimensions of the IOM’s MIDAS

Singler

2021

“…In a similar vein, other scholars of trans-or international criminal justice have made efforts to examine 'the fictions' (Clarke, 2009), 'the messages' (Stahn, 2020), 'imagery' (Tallgren, 2017) as well as 'marketing' (Schwöbel-Patel, 2021) of penality in a global era. These different contributions study, among other things, how seemingly theatrical forms of communication may be understood as an effort to 'legitimize' (Cassese, 2012;Leader, 2020) transnational criminal justice-a branch of criminal justice often criticized for resting on a shaky legal, political and normative foundation (see also Bowling and Sheptycki, 2012). Another distinguished attempt to discuss the performative issues of transnational criminal justice is Nadelmann's discussion of 'transnational moral entrepreneurs' (Andreas and Nadelmann, 2006;Nadelmann, 1990)-a concept he uses to point out how (US) criminal justice and policing actors actively promote their own moral-legal agendas and thus expand and export their policies and technologies (see also Lohne, 2019;Newburn, 2002).…”

Section: Existing Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Sausdal

Lohne

2021

This special issue sets out to explore the Theatrics of Transnational Criminal Justice. ‘Why’, we ask, ‘do transnational criminal justice actors perform themselves as they do?’ ‘Why are their representations frequently, if not different from, then often quite dramatized versions of the average reality of their practices?’ ‘What does such dramatization tell us about not only the symbolism but also the structure and state of transnational criminal justice?’ And, more generally, ‘what do such performances of transnational criminal justice reveal about the nature of penal power in a global day and age?’ In probing such questions, the special issue draws together a number of accomplished ethnographers who have been exploring the performative nature of transnational criminal justice issues around the world, considering both international bodies such as Frontex, Europol, UNODC, the ICC as well as the many national actors involved in the prevention, policing and prosecution of border-crossing issues.

“…Rather than focusing on egregious human rights violations, the procedural workings of the trial or the adjudication of such wrong doings (Born, 2011;Greco, 2007), this article seeks to fathom this transcendence by looking at its performative aspects and investigating the effects of its instantiation (cf. Cole, 2010;Leader, 2020;Taylor, 1997). Contextualized in relation to a double stalemate, that is, that of the endless endgame of the Syrian war and the increasing incapacity of ICJ of late, we analytically approach the court case in Koblenz in terms of its performativity and potential effects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Koleva

Vigh

2021

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.