Constructions of Legitimacy
The Charles Taylor Trial
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12915430 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Marlies Glasius (Comenius University Bratislava, corresponding author), Tim Meijers (0000-0002-0457-2044, UCLouvain) |
| Year | 2012 |
| Volume | 6 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 229-252 |
| Publication date | 2012-04-19 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Transitional Justice (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1752-7716 • E-ISSN: 1752-7724 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ijtj/ijs008 |
| OpenAlex | W2025133723 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
This article examines the discourses of the prosecution and the defence in the case of Charles Taylor before the Special Court for Sierra Leone. It contributes to current debates about the legitimacy and utility of international criminal justice, which have tended to neglect the examination of actual trials, and particularly the role of the defence. We draw on the legal doctrine of ‘expressivism’ to theorize the connection between normative legitimacy, actual support and the utility of international criminal justice as dynamic and partly determined in court. We conclude that the Taylor trial demonstrates three interrelated obstacles to the fulfilment of the expressivist promise: that a tension between criminal proceedings against a single person and truth telling about mass violence necessarily exists; that discourses do not appeal to all audiences equally, and that those which appeal to western audiences are likely to be privileged; and that these weaknesses will usually be exposed and exploited by the defence, weakening the legitimacy of case and court. In order to develop expressivism as an empirical theory, the elements of the actors, the audiences and the stage in the posited ‘courtroom drama’ require further research
Appeal · Criminology · Doctrine · Expressivism · International law · Legitimacy · Normative · Political science · Sierra leone · Sociology · Special court · International Law and Human Rights · Judicial and Constitutional Studies · Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses · Law
Interpretation of crime of “men rape” under international criminal justice
Perpetrators of International Crimes
Quiet’ Transitional Justice
The Record on Which History Will Judge Us Tomorrow’
The expressive turn of international criminal justice
Trials as Messages of Justice
Discursive institutions in non-transitional societies
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,64 |
| Citation span | 2015 - 2020 (6) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 6 |