Sexual crimes against children appeared before the courts with a dramatically increasing frequency over the course of the nineteenth century. But these prosecutions did not always translate into successful convictions of sexual offenders, in part due to contradictory and ambivalent understandings of childhood innocence and doctors’ frequent negative findings concerning the physical traces of these crimes. Medicolegal experts routinely cast moral judgements on the children, particularly working-class girls, identified as victims of sexual crimes. Influenced by bourgeois attitudes toward male honor and notions about the perceived immorality of the working class, these doctors warned that children’s accounts of sexual assault could not be trusted and could destroy men’s reputations. By discounting children’s accounts, doctors laid claim to their exclusive ability to evaluate proof of sexual offenses against children. Furthermore, by discrediting children identified as victims of sexual crimes, medical practitioners shaped attitudes toward sexual assault that presented long-lasting challenges to the pursuit of justice.

The trial of Thomas Lubanga took eight years from the time of Lubanga’s arrival in The Hague. The very first case tested all of the actors involved, as judges struggled to master the statutory gaps in the official rules. Although based on a single criminal charge of using child soldiers in armed conflict, the trial was imperiled by a series of crises, including doubts about the truthfulness of the nine child-soldier witnesses brought by the Prosecution. The role of shadowy “intermediaries” became a focus of concern. The Trial Chamber found itself managing broad flows of evidence, emanating from the Prosecution’s investigations, so that the Defense team had an opportunity to conduct a fair trial. On two occasions, the crises were great enough to threaten the viability of the case. Despite serious questions about the integrity of evidence before the Trial Chamber, Lubanga was convicted and sentenced to fourteen years' detention (of which eight had been served during the trial itself). A final flourish for the Trial Chamber was the creation of a victim-reparations regime, which took an additional seven years post-conviction.

The joint trial of Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo fell apart soon after closing arguments. Faced with insufficient evidence for convicting the pair as joint “masterminds” of a single ethnic-motivated attack against civilians, the Trial Chamber acquitted Ngudjolo but undertook to reconfigure the trial with a new theory about Katanga’s mode of liability. The military structure posited by the Prosecutor (taken from NGO reports) came under careful scrutiny, as it appeared that neither Katanga nor Ngudjolo matched the profile of the mastermind commander. Acting in striking independence of the Prosecution, two of the three trial judges found Katanga guilty under an improvised theory of criminal responsibility, based in part on questions put to Katanga during his testimony by the Presiding Judge. Although Katanga’s conviction and twelve-year sentence were not appealed, there was a powerful dissent by the third trial judge, clarifying some central controversies of the case. More controversy surrounded a later appeal of the Ngudjolo acquittal, which was upheld by a split judicial panel.

The trial of Thomas Lubanga took eight years from the time of Lubanga’s arrival in The Hague. The very first case tested all of the actors involved, as judges struggled to master the statutory gaps in the official rules. Although based on a single criminal charge of using child soldiers in armed conflict, the trial was imperiled by a series of crises, including doubts about the truthfulness of the nine child-soldier witnesses brought by the Prosecution. The role of shadowy “intermediaries” became a focus of concern. The Trial Chamber found itself managing broad flows of evidence, emanating from the Prosecution’s investigations, so that the Defense team had an opportunity to conduct a fair trial. On two occasions, the crises were great enough to threaten the viability of the case. Despite serious questions about the integrity of evidence before the Trial Chamber, Lubanga was convicted and sentenced to fourteen years' detention (of which eight had been served during the trial itself). A final flourish for the Trial Chamber was the creation of a victim-reparations regime, which took an additional seven years post-conviction.

The joint trial of Germain Katanga and Mathieu Ngudjolo fell apart soon after closing arguments. Faced with insufficient evidence for convicting the pair as joint “masterminds” of a single ethnic-motivated attack against civilians, the Trial Chamber acquitted Ngudjolo but undertook to reconfigure the trial with a new theory about Katanga’s mode of liability. The military structure posited by the Prosecutor (taken from NGO reports) came under careful scrutiny, as it appeared that neither Katanga nor Ngudjolo matched the profile of the mastermind commander. Acting in striking independence of the Prosecution, two of the three trial judges found Katanga guilty under an improvised theory of criminal responsibility, based in part on questions put to Katanga during his testimony by the Presiding Judge. Although Katanga’s conviction and twelve-year sentence were not appealed, there was a powerful dissent by the third trial judge, clarifying some central controversies of the case. More controversy surrounded a later appeal of the Ngudjolo acquittal, which was upheld by a split judicial panel.