The first peoples’ tribunal, the International War Crimes Tribunals – otherwise referred to as the Bertrand Russell Tribunal or Stockholm Tribunal – was established in 1967 with a defined mandate to address the United States’ complicity in the Vietnam war. They were an innovation intended to address the accountability gap that existed due to the failure or unwillingness of states to discharge their obligation to investigate and prosecute crimes committed within their territories and those carried out by its nationals outside its geographical boundaries. The idea was to not wait for the state.
The Bertrand Russell Tribunal became the inspiration for successive peoples’ tribunals, addressing victims of civil, political and socio-economic rights generally, or specifically directed at women victims known as a women’s court or tribunal. The first women’s court, the International Tribunal on Crimes against Women, held in Belgium in March 1976 addressed everything from torture and rape to pornography and forced sterilisation. In 1979, the Italian jurist Lelio Basso established the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal modelled after the Russell Tribunals. It has held 47 sessions to date across the globe on issues ranging from human rights in Asia to the 2003 war in Iraq. Other examples of specific women’s tribunals include: the Women’s International War Crimes Tribunal for the Trial of Japan’s Military Sexual Slavery 2000, otherwise known as the Tokyo Women’s Tribunal; the Guatemalan Courts of Conscience 2010; and the Women’s Court Sarajevo in 2015. Are peoples’ tribunals a meaningful alternative space for survivors of sexual violence in conflict to speak about their experiences of violence and reparation needs? Maybe.
Form and Process
Peoples’ tribunals have an array of goals. They seek to dislodge years of state silences over gross violations of human rights, censure or denounce perpetrators of such violations, and/or substitute (in)action of the state in the name of the people. The form and structure of peoples’ tribunals that have been established have, to a great degree, been dependent on mimicking the majesty of courts. The Tokyo Women’s Tribunal, for instance, was convened to attribute symbolic responsibility for Japanese war crimes committed in the Asia Pacific during the second world war and was framed as a continuation of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE). The tribunal adopted legal and formalistic trappings to complete the effect. The proceedings, language used, and description of parties bore close resemblance to formal legal proceedings. The Women’s Court in Sarajevo was less formalistic and legalistic in nature. In addition to the testimonies of female survivors from across the region, expert testimonies provided additional context and insight. Drama, poetry, and street performance from women were also featured. A third, hybrid form incorporates elements of both, as adopted by the Iran Peoples’ Tribunal in the form of a two-stage process. The first stage was modeled after a truth and reconciliation commission and provided space for witnesses to tell their stories outside the confines of legal proceedings. The second stage, however, was more formal in structure because it entailed the making of summations on legal issues under international law.
