Unspectacular Atrocities and the Aesthetics of International Trials

Abstract

Randle DeFalco’s intriguing new book explores the process through which “slow, banal, bureaucratic, attritive, or otherwise aesthetically unspectacular” forms of violence have fallen outside the purview of international criminal law (ICL) (4). Notably, the author shares with supporters of the ICL regime the conviction that individual persons should be held responsible for their participation in international crimes and that the embeddedness of those crimes within broader socioeconomic structures of oppression should not serve as an excuse to dismiss them “as nobody’s fault and therefore impossible to stop” (8). Building on that premise, the book seeks to demonstrate to ICL practitioners and human rights advocates that, imperfect as the legal regime might be, there is nothing in ICL de lege lata that prevents it from addressing unspectacular forms of violence under the rubric of genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes (101). While many of the book’s observations merit further consideration, I focus specifically on its theoretical framework, by situating it within the broader literature on “practice studies,” and on its explanatory potential, which appears greater than the author himself recognizes.