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76 Law & Contemp. Probs. 287 (2013)
Practices of Stigmatization

handle is hein.journals/lcp76 and id is 851 raw text is: PRACTICES OF STIGMATIZATION FRtDtRIC IVIGRET* I INTRODUCTION According to one popular minimalist account, contemporary international criminal justice features strictly forensic goals: investigating crimes, prosecuting the accused, and guaranteeing a fair trial. However, the limited number of international criminal prosecutions makes it difficult to believe that repression could be the only goal of contemporary international criminal justice. There must be something beyond repression for its own sake; repression must be a means to an end. A variety of justifications are thus deployed. The language of deterrence, for example, offers a reassuringly utilitarian and instrumental rationale for criminal justice, one that deals in the harsh delivery of disincentives. Other justifications for contemporary international criminal justice include contributing to international peace and security, facilitating transition, establishing a historical record, and providing victims with relief. Yet behind this techno-legal fagade lies a more potent and problematic conception of the actual goal of international criminal tribunals: to assign stigma to certain types of behavior. Given that the repressive rationale for contemporary international criminal justice is undermined by the scarcity of cases prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the somewhat symbolic dimension of its work, studying the stigma rationale may lead to a more realistic and ambitious account of the activity of the ICC, one that brings together sociological, criminological, and international relations (IR) approaches. Studying the stigma rationale will also help refocus attention from the accused or victims onto the society from which international criminal justice emanates and that, in turn, it helps shape. Stigma is a form of social opprobrium that is its own end and can thus be distinguished analytically from actual punishment (imprisonment, for example). In fact, although I will argue that stigma is inherently linked to the criminal process, it is not only or even necessarily a result of punishment. Nor is stigma the same as shaming. Stigma attaches to its target regardless of that target's reaction to it: one can be stigmatized by society, even though one is not personally shamed. Stigma is not incompatible with other goals (such as retribution or deterrence), but it remains separate from them as a sociological consequence of the operation of a criminal system. Copyright @ 2014 by Frdd6ric M6gret. This article is also available at http://lcp.law.duke.edul. * Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, McGill University. Canada Research Chair in the Law of Human Rights and Legal Pluralism.

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