Judging justice : how victim witnesses evaluate international courts /

Meernik and King (both, Univ. of North Texas) set out to determine the perceptions of people who address horrific crimes during social and political upheaval through evaluating the concept of international justice. Their subjects are 300 witnesses who appeared before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Their goal is to develop a theoretical model explaining how witnesses develop opinions on the nature of justice in an institutional framework. The study is empirically based, with a substantial literature base that covers the wide array of interests displayed. The authors begin with a premise that individuals consider the notion of justice from personal and sociopolitical perspectives. In the context of international justice, witnesses before an international tribunal assess the process as they find it affecting themselves personally and then within the context of personal identity. Because four major ethnic groups were involved in the Balkan wars--Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, and Kosovar Albanians--ethnicity is measured as a transnational identity. The idea of justice includes the idea of fairness, searching for how witnesses felt defendants and other witnesses were treated during the procedure. Perceptions are placed in the context of the wartime experiences of the witnesses. This is a major contribution to the study of court systems and judicial politics. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. --Sanford R. Silverburg, emeritus, Catawba College