New Evidence: The Aesthetics of International Law

Abstract

A war crimes trial embodies a combination of representational and presentational drama. The contemporary war crimes trial owes equal inspiration to the ‘realism’ of Henrik Ibsen and the ‘theatrics’ of Bertold Brecht. The question for scholars is whether the trial is but a stylized presentation of the ‘real’ events, or a realistic medium through which to eavesdrop on history. This essay explores this question of war crimes and dramatization in the context of Director of Public Prosecutions v. Polyukhovich, the one war crimes case ever taken to trial under Australia’s War Crimes Amendment Act of 1988.

Keywords: war crimes, international law, Plyukhovich