4 - Unspectacular Atrocities and International Criminal Law

Summary

This chapter addresses the contention that ICL practice focuses myopically on horrific spectacles because all, or at least the most serious, international crimes necessarily involve the production of such spectacles. It does so by demonstrating that ICL, in its current form, appears capable of addressing forms of harm causation significantly different in nature and aesthetic familiarity than those it has overwhelmingly been applied to in the past. It does so in two parts. First, it considers scholarship that examines how genocide, atrocity, and mass violence actually manifest themselves and unfold. This scholarship highlights the dynamic, causally multifaceted nature of most atrocity commission processes. Second, it examines the degree to which the doctrinal substance of ICL could account for the causal heterogeneity and complexity of atrocities. Through this analysis, this chapter demonstrates that, in theory, ICL could be applied to a variety of harm causation modalities failing to conform to the atrocity aesthetic.