Between Liberal Legal Didactics and Political Manichaeism: The Politics and Law of the Iraqi Special Tribunal

Abstract

The author argues that the trials of Iraq's previous government before the Iraqi Special Tribunal ('IST') should be read as a particular kind of political trial: a successor trial of a prior regime, in which the political contestation revolves around the legitimation of the new order, and the delegitimation of the old. He contends that although the prevailing discourse of 'international justice' tends to deny or repress the constitutive politics of successor trials, these political tensions invariably re-emerge. The author considers evidence from a field study of Iraqi attitudes towards transitional justice, and reviews the historical and political circumstances that have shaped the creation of the IST. He concludes that the IST is afflicted by many of the same kinds of difficulties that have plagued the US invasion and occupation: international hostility, dubious legality, Iraqi ambivalence and the taint of power politics.