ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses the challenges faced by people’s tribunals and suggests what an ideal tribunal should look like in future.
A core challenge for tribunals is that, while they are often envisioned as radical responses to the dominant system of international law, they increasingly apply the very same laws in practice. Moreover, tribunals provide traumatised victims and societies with some element of the right to truth and some element of the right to justice, but due to their nature they fail to fully realise either, which may cause confusion, mistrust and tension. Other tensions may arise inside tribunals between members of panels, in particular between lawyers and non-lawyers, as well as between organisers and panels. Furthermore, questioning the commonly held belief that testifying before a people’s tribunal has a healing effect on witnesses as a result of their suffering receiving public acknowledgement and their dignity being restored, this chapter argues that such generalisation does not apply to the experiences of all witnesses.
Many tribunals lack a proper communications and outreach strategy. As a result, the excellent work of the tribunal, the touching testimonies of the witnesses to the most heinous crimes, and the impressive, well-articulated statements and judgements of the panels often are not covered by the media, and thus do not gain the public attention that they deserve. Not having a concrete follow-up plan in advance, including a plan to measure their impact, also hinders tribunals in carrying out activities beyond merely publishing their judgements.
The author has served as a member of the jury on three international people’s tribunals and includes some suggestions for improving future tribunals, such as contributing more to the development of international law instead of remaining within its boundaries, being more transparent about what tribunals cannot deliver and documenting and publishing the history of each tribunal including internal discussions, tensions and dissenting opinions. The author argues that future tribunals should also include proper and professional communications and outreach strategies and follow-up plans, which should be developed from the very first stage of preparation.
