Paper short abstract:

What has been the role played by forensic anthropologists in the evolution and development of international criminal justice? This paper will examine the nexus of anthropology and international law as witnessed by international criminal tribunals and the work of forensic anthropologists.

Paper long abstract:

Criminal enquiries by international criminal tribunals into war crimes and genocide have increasingly come to be characterised by the application of forensic anthropological analysis to the investigative process. Material gathered through mass grave exhumation is translated into forensic evidence used to support a prosecutorial theory of guilt of the accused, or in the case of defence investigations, to debunk contentions of culpability. The rules underpinning the practice of anthropologists in such a context have, however, developed on an ad hoc basis and have frequently evolved in a reactive fashion, rather than on an anticipatory basis. This paper seeks to examine the experience to date of anthropologists working within an international criminal justice context, through the examination of the following themes:

1. The history of forensic expertise and international criminal trials.

2. (i) The regulations that guide the practice of anthropologists who work in an international criminal justice context and (ii) rules of procedure and evidence that have been developed by international criminal trials pertaining to expert witness evidence. Using examples drawn from the investigatory practice and the case law of the international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the paper will highlight the tensions that can arise when prosecutorial objectives are at cross purposes with other competing needs of concern to the anthropologist, including humanitarian objectives such as human identification and the repatriation to surviving families of victim's remains.