Victim participation at the ICC has routinely been viewed as an empty promise of justice or mere spectacle for audiences in the Global North, providing little benefit for victims. Why, then, do people in Kenya and Uganda engage in justice processes that offer so little, so late? How and why do they become the court''s victims and intermediaries, and what impact do these labels have on them?Victims and the Labour of Justice at the International Criminal Court offers a response to these poignant questions, demonstrating that the notion of ''justice for victims'' is not merely symbolic, expressive, or instrumental. On the contrary — the book argues — the ICC''s methods of victim engagement are productive, reproducing the Court as a relevant institution and transforming victims in the Global South into highly gendered and racialized labouring subjects. Challenging the Court''s interplay with global capitalist relationships, the book makes visible the hidden labour of justice, and how it lures, disciplines, and blames both victims and victims'' advocates.Drawing on critical theory, criminological analysis, and multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork in The Hague, Kenya, and Uganda, Victims and the Labour of Justice at the International Criminal Court illuminates how the drive to include victims as participants in international criminal justice proceedings also creates and disciplines them as blameworthy capitalist subjects. Yet, as victim workers learn to ''stop crying'', ''be peaceful'', ''get married'', ''work hard'', and ''repay debt'', they also begin to challenge the terms of global justice.
Industry Reviews
This extraordinary study of the International Criminal Court illuminates how the minutia of the court's institutional processes interpolate and refract the injustices of the dominant world order. This is socio-legal analysis at its best - elegantly combining ethnographic fieldwork in Uganda, Kenya and the Hague with macro-analysis of the racial-capitalist world order that produced and shapes the court. A gifted theorist and storyteller, the book offers a compelling, stinging critique of the international criminal justice machinery while attentive to how 'victims', resist, decenter and sometimes smash the machines that seek to conscript them into further victimization. Brilliant, original and intellectually rigorous from start to finish, Ullrich's book is destined to shape the field it studies. * Vasuki Nesiah, Professor of Practice, New York University *
Who labours for international justice under conditions of global capitalism? With remarkable ease and elegance, Leila Ullrich navigates the difficult question of labour at the International Criminal Court, and in criminal justice more generally. By bringing together fascinating fieldwork experiences with profound knowledge of critical theory, Ullrich makes her thesis on victims as racialised and gendered labourers come alive. Ultimately, this excellent book is an urgent invitation to consider abolition, reparations, and resistance in the wider field of international justice. A necessary and rewarding read for anyone interested in international justice and its relationship to the pathologies of global capitalism. * Christine Schwoebel-Patel, Professor of Law, University of Warwick *
Leila Ullrich's The Blame Cascade is a brilliant addition to the burgeoning literature on the role of victims within the International Criminal Court. Drawing on Marxist theory and engaging with gender- and race-based critiques of international criminal law, Ullrich shows - through rich empirical and theoretical investigation - how the ICC tries to turn Global South atrocity victims into subservient capitalist subjects. This book is essential reading for scholars and practitioners wanting to understand the often problematic 'invisible labour' of international criminal justice. * Phil Clark, Professor of International Politics, SOAS University of London *
