Guest Speaker: Dr Valeria Veigh Weis, University of Constance

Title: 'Decolonising normative transfers in International Criminal Justice. The Role of Truth Trials in Argentina as a Non-Punitive Transformative Tool in ICJ and an Opportunity for Accountability when Perpetrators are Dead'

Abstract: Moving away from the dominant top-down frameworks developed in the Global North, this presentation will look at legal developments in the Global South and their potential to reshape the boundaries and possibilities of international criminal justice. In doing so, it will engage with a Southern perspective that sees the South as an equal actor with innovative processes and epistemologies from which the North can learn.

In particular, I will examine the so-called 'truth trials'. This legal mechanism was created and promoted by victims of the Argentine dictatorship (1976-1983) to seek justice when the perpetrators were protected by impunity laws in the 1990s. Currently, it has been reshaped and used by indigenous communities seeking justice for massacres committed in the country in the early 20th century.

In this vein, the presentation will first present my empirical findings on the use of truth processes in Argentina, both during the dictatorship and in relation to crimes suffered by indigenous peoples. I will then assess the potential use of this mechanism in other parts of the world. On the one hand, I will explore whether the mechanism might be able to overcome the main criticisms of ICL, namely that it is punitive and non-transformative, costly and selective. On the other hand, I will also assess whether truth trials can be used in cases where accountability for international crimes is not fully developed and the perpetrators are already dead. Specifically, I will briefly discuss the limitations of the accountability process in Germany, both in relation to Nazi crimes and the crimes of colonisation, and whether/how truth trials could function as a potential avenue for justice.