Since the Nuremberg trials (1945-1946), criminal jurisdictions such as those for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda have aimed to judge the world’s most serious offenses: war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocides.
These jurisdictions have inspired substantial legal, anthropological, and sociological analyses. Most of the research carried out has been either through field observations or interviews with victims and professionals. Our research, however, looks at another angle: that of the criminal experience of the accused (whether they have been acquitted or convicted). The aim here is not to understand the criminal act, but the institutional processes that were set up to respond to it.
