Victims and the Labour of Justice at the International Criminal Court: The Blame Cascade

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Prof Leila Ullrich (Associate Professor of Criminology, Associate Professor of Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford)

Victims and the Labour of Justice at the International Criminal Court

The Blame Cascade

Prof Leila Ullrich (Associate Professor of Criminology, Associate Professor of Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford)

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English

Oxford University Press
30 May 2024

International organisations & institutions; International criminal law; International courts & procedures; Criminal justice law

Series: Clarendon Studies in Criminology

Victim participation at the ICC has routinely been viewed as an empty promise of justice or mere spectacle for audiences in the Global North, providing little benefit for victims. Why, then, do people in Kenya and Uganda engage in justice processes that offer so little, so late? How and why do they become the court's victims and intermediaries, and what impact do these labels have on them?

Victims and the Labour of Justice at the International Criminal Court offers a response to these poignant questions, demonstrating that the notion of 'justice for victims' is not merely symbolic, expressive, or instrumental. On the contrary ED the book argues ED the ICC's methods of victim engagement are productive, reproducing the Court as a relevant institution and transforming victims in the Global South into highly gendered and racialized labouring subjects. Challenging the Court's interplay with global capitalist relationships, the book makes visible the hidden labour of justice, and how it lures, disciplines, and blames both victims and victims' advocates.

Drawing on critical theory, criminological analysis, and multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in The Hague, Kenya, and Uganda, Victims and the Labour of Justice at the International Criminal Court illuminates how the drive to include victims as participants in international criminal justice proceedings also creates and disciplines them as blameworthy capitalist subjects. Yet, as victim workers learn to 'stop crying', 'be peaceful', 'get married', 'work hard', and 'repay debt', they also begin to challenge the terms of global justice.

By: Prof Leila Ullrich (Associate Professor of Criminology Associate Professor of Criminology Faculty of Law University of Oxford)
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 216mm, Width: 138mm,
ISBN: 9780198870258
ISBN 10: 0198870256
Series: Clarendon Studies in Criminology
Pages: 384
Publication Date: 30 May 2024
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

1: Introduction 2: What Is Justice and Does It Matter? The Rome Statute and Its Disciples 3: Creating the Victim: From Innocent Victims to Indebted Subjects 4: Translators, Compradors, or Ideological Labourers? The Role of the ICC's Intermediaries 5: Reparations, Abolitionist Imaginaries, and Self-transforming Victims: Transformative Justice at the ICC 6: Money and Land: Resistance in Times of Capitalist Complementarity 7: Conclusion

Leila Ullrich is an Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of Oxford. She works at the crossroads of international criminal justice, transitional justice, victimology, and border criminology. She is particularly interested in how global criminal justice institutions create gendered and racialized subjects, and how these subjects (victims, refugees, and racialized communities) engage with and resist these processes. She approaches these questions using feminist, decolonial, and critical political economy theories while also developing new bottom-up research methods such as qualitative WhatsApp surveying. Leila was previously a Lecturer in Law at Queen Mary University and a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford.

Reviews for Victims and the Labour of Justice at the International Criminal Court: The Blame Cascade

Who labours for international justice under conditions of global capitalism? With remarkable ease and elegance, Leila Ullrich navigates the difficult question of labour at the International Criminal Court, and in criminal justice more generally. By bringing together fascinating fieldwork experiences with profound knowledge of critical theory, Ullrich makes her thesis on victims as racialised and gendered labourers come alive. Ultimately, this excellent book is an urgent invitation to consider abolition, reparations, and resistance in the wider field of international justice. A necessary and rewarding read for anyone interested in international justice and its relationship to the pathologies of global capitalism. * Christine Schwöbel-Patel, Professor of Law, University of Warwick * Leila Ullrich's The Blame Cascade is a brilliant addition to the burgeoning literature on the role of victims within the International Criminal Court. Drawing on Marxist theory and engaging with gender- and race-based critiques of international criminal law, Ullrich shows - through rich empirical and theoretical investigation - how the ICC tries to turn Global South atrocity victims into subservient capitalist subjects. This book is essential reading for scholars and practitioners wanting to understand the often problematic 'invisible labour' of international criminal justice. * Phil Clark, Professor of International Politics, SOAS University of London *