NGO-Prosecutorial Complex in Universal Jurisdiction Cases: Structure and Consequences for Justice and Public Knowledge about Human Rights Violations

该项目将促进对非政府组织和检察机构在普遍管辖权下的刑事诉讼中组成的网络的结构和运作的了解。它将进一步展示这些网络如何影响司法、法庭叙述和公众对大规模侵犯人权行为的认识。非政府组织-检察网络以两种方式影响审判和对违法行为的了解。他们通过将证据、证人和私人检察官（其中一些是由难民组成的）引入审判，来美化指控和法庭程序。此外，非政府组织通过观察审判和在网站上发表博客和报告，帮助传播情境化的法庭叙述。这些因果过程的本质将被探讨。美国人对这些经验非常感兴趣，特别是考虑到最近更新的联邦法律《为战争罪行受害者伸张正义法》，该法案允许在美国起诉被指控的战争罪犯——无论犯罪地点和罪犯或受害者的国籍如何。在这个项目中，研究生将得到培训，所获得的知识将被纳入大学和研究生的教学中。见解将通过面向公众的论文、与从业人员的研讨会和研讨会进行交流。该项目以学术研究为基础，研究刑事审判如何塑造对大规模暴行犯罪的认识和集体记忆。这一研究表明，审判往往会影响公众对此类罪行的看法和集体记忆，即使受到刑法制度逻辑的限制——刑法注重个人，对结构背景和长期的持续时间不感兴趣，限制证据规则，以及有罪与无罪的二分法。拟议的研究超越司法机构的范围，审查它们与国内和跨国界的非政府组织形式的民间社会的网络联系：一个跨国非政府组织-检察联合体。该项目将加强法律社会学、知识、集体记忆和组织间网络交叉领域的知识。该研究包括对几个参与UJ诉讼的国家的检察官、调查人员和非政府组织代表进行深入访谈。访谈探讨了组织目标、组织间交流网络的结构和交流的内容。对法庭文件的分析将追踪非政府组织的议程、投入和网络如何反映在审判叙述中。通过分析非政府组织的博客和报道，可以确定更多的网络联系，并检查法庭叙述向公众的传播。该项目将增加知识社会学对网络结构与法律真理和日常知识生产之间联系的见解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The project will advance knowledge on the structure and functioning of networks formed by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and prosecutorial agencies in criminal proceedings under universal jurisdiction (UJ). It will further show how these networks affect justice, court narratives, and public knowledge about massive violations of human rights. NGO-prosecutorial networks affect trials and knowledge about violations in two ways. They color charges and court proceedings by channeling evidence, witnesses, and private prosecutors—some constituted out of refugee populations—into trials. In addition, NGOs contribute to the spread of contextualized court narratives through trial observation and the publication of blogs and reports on websites. The nature of these causal processes will be explored. American interest in these experiences is substantial, especially considering the “Justice for Victims of War Crimes Act” that recently updated federal law to enable prosecution of alleged war criminals in the United States—regardless of the place of perpetration and the nationality of the perpetrator or the victim. During this project, graduate students will be trained, and knowledge gained will be incorporated into college and graduate instruction. Insights will be communicated through a public-facing paper, workshops with practitioners, and a symposium.The project builds on scholarship that examines how criminal trials shape knowledge about and collective memory of mass atrocity crimes. This body of research shows that trials often affect public perceptions and collective memories of such crimes, even while constrained by the institutional logic of criminal law with its focus on individuals, disinterest in structural contexts and the longue durée, limiting evidentiary rules, and guilty-not guilty binaries. The proposed research looks beyond the confines of judicial institutions to examine their network ties with civil society in the form of NGOs, domestically and across national boundaries: a transnational NGO-prosecutorial complex. The project will enhance knowledge at the intersection of the sociology of law, knowledge, collective memory, and inter-organizational networks. The research includes in-depth interviews with prosecutors, investigators, and NGO representatives, in several countries engaging in UJ proceedings. Interviews explore organizational goals, the structure of exchange networks between organizations and the content of exchanges. An analysis of court documents will trace how NGO agendas, input, and networks are reflected in trial narratives. Analyzing NGO blogs and reports will identify additional network ties and examine the transmission of court narratives to the public. The project will add to sociology of knowledge insights into the link between network structures and the production of legal truths and everyday knowledgeThis award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.