International criminal justice on/and film

Extract
The contributions to this Issue were presented at a workshop on ‘International Criminal Justice on/and Film’, held at the London School of Economics and Political Science in September 2016. The workshop gathered together scholars from international law, international relations, history, and film and media studies, as well as lawyers, filmmakers, and producers, to consider the impact of film upon law and law upon film. In this Introduction, we lay out the questions that motivated the workshop, outline the intellectual rationale for the project, sketch the contributions to this Issue, and suggest directions for further inquiry in the field.

What does film have to do with international criminal justice, and what do international criminal law and trials have to do with film? If their relationship is, as we suspect, co-dependent, at least to a degree, how do they relate and interact? Films can of course be characterised as ‘telling stories’ about international criminal law, while international criminal trials too serve as venues for ‘telling stories’ about crime, guilt, and victimisation, including by relaying or narrating the past through images. Films have long served as evidence in this genre of trials or filling in the background, reproducing ‘the historical context’ or representing ‘what really happened’. Filmed crimes—and filmed trials—attract media attention; indeed they are sometimes placed deliberately in the public realm to serve institutional policies of ‘outreach’ and ‘re-education’. Further, films may become accessory instruments of international crime, in some cases even inciting violence. The medium of film is moreover ideally suited to advocate or impose particular views of events and responsibilities, sometimes obscuring other interpretations. Beyond all this, films are also increasingly used to teach international law and international relations, and their histories.