Book
De facto International Prosecutors in a Global Era: With My Own Eyes (Cambridge University Press, 2022) illuminates the role of non state actors and state legal officials in foreign courts that pursue criminal accountability for those most responsible for humanities greatest crimes.
Reviews
“This one-of-a-kind book is a gem. Based on rich biographical inquiry, it sheds light on how international justice can emerge bottom-up from the actions of victims and witnesses of crimes against humanity. Self-organized as communities of practice, these informal actors learned from precedents, adopted legal practices, and played the role of “de-facto international prosecutors,” thus driving perpetrators of international crimes to become accountable in foreign courts. Rankin’s With My Own Eyes should be required reading for anyone interested in international criminal law, human rights, legal history, global governance, and International Relations theory, particularly international practice theory.”
Emanuel Adler, Andrea and Charles Bronfman Chair of Israeli Studies, Emeritus, and Professor of Political Science at the University of Toronto, Emeritus.
“The story of international criminal justice is typically told as a very public one. But behind the scenes, prosecutions languish or come to life often thanks to the solitary quests of “private prosecutors”. Melinda Rankin’s book tells a formidably intriguing story, one in which victims and witnesses are not merely the beneficiaries of international criminal justice but, in fact, its backbone. It reinstates the power of the biographical in highlighting the larger than life trajectories without which international criminal justice would flounder. Compelling reading for political scientists and international lawyers alike, De facto international prosecutors breaks new ground at every turn.”
— Frédéric Mégret, Professor of Law at McGill University, Co-director of the Centre for Human Rights, and Legal Pluralism William Dawson Scholar.
“A timely book, enhancing our understanding of how the international criminal justice process can sometimes overcome considerable structural barriers in a global society. Not only conceptually innovative, but gripping and eye-opening in its case studies.”
— Mattias Kumm, Inge Rennert Professor of Law at New York University (NYU), and Professor of Global Public Law at Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB).
“Melinda Rankin supplies the answer to those who fear that we are in the end times of human rights: atrocity crime survivors allied with experienced investigators, building successful prosecutions against the perpetrators in foreign courts based on a body of law increasingly recognised as binding on all the world.”
— Stephen J. Rapp, Former US Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice (2009-2015), and former prosecutor for International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and Special Court of Sierra Leone (SCSL).
De facto International Prosecutors in a Global Era
With My Own Eyes
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022.
This book shines light on the role of ‘de facto international prosecutors’ as an emerging phenomenon. They are ‘private’ non-state actors, and state legal ‘officials’ in foreign courts, which pursue criminal accountability for those most responsible for core international crimes. They do so when local options to investigate fail and an international criminal tribunal remains unavailable.
A particular focus of the book is the role of witnesses and victims of core international crimes. The study outlines three biographical case studies of witnesses and victims who pursue criminal accountability for those most responsible, including former heads of state. The biographical case studies consist of: Juan Garcés in relation to Augusto Pinochet, former President of Chile; Souleymane Guengueng in relation to Hissène Habré, former President of Chad; and ‘Chief Investigator 1’, a local Syrian investigator who is a founding member of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA). It examines the practices and strategies they adopt, and shows how witnesses and victims of core crimes emerge as key leaders in the accountability process.
Yet, witnesses and victims of core crimes can not act alone. Nor do they intend to. They work together with other ‘private’ non-state actors, and with state legal ‘officials’ in foreign courts exercising universal jurisdiction. The book also provides a case study exploring state legal ‘officials’ investigating core international crimes in the context of the German legal system.
Together, ‘private’ non-state actors and state legal ‘officials’ in foreign courts work together as ‘de facto international prosecutors’ to pursue criminal accountability, when others can not. The practices they adopt include inter alia identifying key victims and witnesses; collecting evidence that links those most responsible to the under lying crimes; devising case strategy; writing case briefs and/or criminal complaints; and identifying the sources of international law. In all three biographical cases, they are guided by the evidence they collect, and pursue accountability for those most responsible through a public criminal prosecution.
The primary aim of De facto International Prosecutors in a Global Era is to explain how and why de facto international prosecutors extend the reach of international criminal law by implicitly or explicitly adopting the tasks and practices of the offices of international prosecutors.
To a lesser extent, the book also proposes two theoretical frameworks.
The first theoretical framework conceptually defines de facto international prosecutors. It explains how and why they form a ‘community of practice’ and more particularly cooperative-‘criminal accountability communities’ to close the accountability gap. It illuminates the roles adaptation and innovation play in the long road to criminal prosecution. Together, de facto international prosecutors cooperate in a number of complex legal practices. They must also draw on complex sources of international law to establish that foreign courts have jurisdiction over particular core crimes, such as torture; and that senior leaders do not enjoy immunity. The study reveals how particular crimes classed as abhorrent and non-derogable by the international community, such as torture, have evolved, and are legally upheld by a State Party and/or the International Court Justice.
Lastly, the second theoretical framework begins to outline how de facto international prosecutors implicitly conceptualise the emerging system of international criminal law.