Le centre de droit international a le plaisir de vous annoncer que le prochain midi du centre aura lieu le mardi 26 janvier. Il sera animé par Sofia Stolk et aura pour thème: « The Record on Which History Will Judge Us Tomorrow’: Auto-History in the Opening Statements of International Criminal Trials ».

Sofia Stolk is a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Politics of Transnational Law and a PhD candidate at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research focuses on the theatricality of international criminal trials and the appeal to legitimacy that is put forward, particularly in the opening statements of the different trial parties.

Descriptif de la communication : In international criminal tribunal discourse, appeals to history and legitimacy are omnipresent. This article addresses the widespread practice of combining these appeals into one narrative. It analyses how international prosecutors engage with justifying the legitimacy of trials through the invocation of a tribunal’s own history. The scrutiny of such ‘auto-histories’ as a specific form of history-telling illuminates an overlooked dimension of trials as forums for writing history. The opening statement is a perfect opportunity for constructing and communicating auto-histories. A comparative study of opening statements at the IMT, SCSL and ICC reveals a recurrent, self-justifying narrative where both rootedness in history and a break with the past are key to singing the tribunal into existence as a crucial mechanism in the transition from chaos to peace. The connections between auto-histories at different tribunals show how legal practitioners discursively contribute to constructing ICL’s identity by relying on both origins and future.

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Pour rappel les midis du Centre de droit international se déroulent de 12h15 à 14h, à la salle de réunion du Centre de droit international (Bâtiment H, 5ème étage, local H5.159). Des rafraîchissements sont offerts sous réserve d’inscription avant 15h00 le jour ouvrable précédant l’événement. En cas d’inscription, nous vous remercions de venir effectivement à la séance ou, en cas d’empêchement impromptu, de nous prévenir aussitôt que possible. Toute personne désirant un sandwich enverra parallèlement un courriel à  cdi@ulb.ac.be  et pourra, sous cette seule condition, en bénéficier.