Against international criminal tribunals: reconciling the global justice norm with local agency

Understood as the need to address official crimes committed under the previous regime, a global norm of transitional justice has emerged since the end of the cold war. Combined with the postwar resurgence of international law and institutions, this has resulted in the increased use of international criminal tribunals to prosecute state-sponsored human rights violations. While I acknowledge the positive aspects of these developments, I argue that such tribunals are inadequate vehicles for justice for two reasons: (1) they are divorced from the affected communities; and (2) they conceive of historical justice too narrowly. Building on the discursive cosmopolitanism of Jürgen Habermas and Seyla Benhabib, I contend that respecting local traditions and desires is crucial to achieving justice. I lay the groundwork for a contextual universalism that respects international legal norms while stimulating discourse in the community where they occurred, so that victims and perpetrators can live together as members of the same polity once more.