Documentary Film and International Criminal Law
Co-sponsored talk with Law.Art.Culture Colloquium
The life of international criminal law not only takes place in courtrooms or at diplomatic conferences. For a long time now, it has also been a field of audiovisual representations, where the main topics, subjects and categories of international criminal justice enjoy a second life on screen. In my presentation, I will focus on the impact of specific modes of audiovisual representation of international criminal law. Based on Bill Nichols’ taxonomy of documentary genres and Albert Camus’ reflections on justice and compassion, I will discuss three ways in which issues of justice have been portrayed in documentary films on international criminal law:
(a) Programmatic justice
(b) Compassionate justice
(c) Tragic justice
Wouter Werner is professor public international law at the Centre for the Politics of Transnational Law at the VU in Amsterdam. His current research focuses on the impact of repetition on international legal argumentation and artistic representation of international law.