Professor Colleen Murphy will deliver a public lecture titled "Peace and Justice? The Case of the International Criminal Court" on Thursday, April 25th, in The Hague. The talk is part of the Public Ethics series at the Leiden Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs. Murphy provided the following abstract for her talk:

Transitional justice encompasses a range of processes that deal with human rights abuses in the context of attempted transitions away from conflict and/or repression. Transitional justice aims at transforming political relationships among citizens and between citizens and officials of the society in which conflict and/or repression occurred. Processes of transitional justice facilitate this transformation in a manner that treats victims and perpetrators fittingly and appropriately.  

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has multiple audiences, including the international community as well as the specific domestic communities from which particular cases originate. The ICC has multiple aims, including the ending of impunity and the maintenance of peace. I discuss synergies and tensions between the pursuit of peace within a particular country and the pursuit of peace internationally. I also consider the limits of criminal trials and punishment in ending impunity for the crimes that fall within the ICC’s jurisdiction.