Atrocity, Punishment, and International Law

This book rethinks how people who perpetrate atrocity crimes should be punished. Based on an 'on the ground' review of the sentencing of perpetrators of genocide and crimes against humanity in Rwanda, Bosnia, East Timor, and other places afflicted by atrocity, this book concludes that the international community's preference for prosecution and imprisonment may not be as effective as we hope. Instead, this book calls for a broader-based response to atrocity that welcomes bottom-up perspectives, including restorative, reparative, and reintegrative traditions, that may differ from the adversarial Western criminal trial. The time has come for international criminal law as a discipline to move beyond nascence and to welcome a more challenging stage: that of re-appraisal and self-improvement.