Explaining Mass Atrocity through Culture: The Missing Link for International Criminal Justice

The approach of international courts and tribunals to mass criminality is to examine blameworthiness in isolation of commonly-held beliefs and aspirations of victims and perpetrators, as well as their associated communities. This has allowed political elites to use pertinent legal judgments to exorcise the communities of which a convicted person is a member. This Article argues that anthropological analyses should inform all aspects of the international criminal justice process. Such analyses could be particularly helpful in determining how protagonists' underlying assumptions and external factors affect their beliefs about the types of actions that conflict-ridden societies should take.