'Reimagining the Prosecution of International Crimes. In Search of a Restorative Justice Paradigm at the International Criminal Court'

This project aims to investigate the extent to which restorative justice values have been incorporated within the relevant International Criminal Court’s (ICC) legal framework in relation to the participation of victims in the proceedings, reparations and the enforcement of the sentence. However, there is little research into whether, or how this innovative victim-oriented framework metes out restorative justice principles and practice, or can be labelled as a restorative mechanism, given the limitations that this justice paradigm faces when entering the international criminal justice arena. The significant gap between the Rome Statute’s aspirations and the actual experience of victims is revealing that the ICC nature, like tribunals and domestic criminal law, is essentially retributive in purpose and outcome. Thus, the study addresses the problem of rethinking new responses for restoring justice after large-scale violent conflicts through the adoption of the restorative perspective and practises which would constitute a complementary approach to traditional international criminal proceedings. Reshaping the interplay between victims and defendants through diverse strategies for reconciliation, such as through reparative sanctions instead of mere incarceration, or through a more robust posture in pursuing plea agreements, would encourage a spirit of inter-institutional and cross-cultural learning between the ICC and other justice systems, thus bringing justice closer to the lifeworld of affected communities in order to reinforce a meaningful and concrete access to justice by victims as well as the offenders’ sense of responsibility.