Victims’ proactive role in the evidence-gathering process at the ICC : toward an expressivist justice model

Abstract The Rome Statute (rs) of the International Criminal Court (icc) failed to reach a fair degree of legal certainty for the role of victims, leaving the task of defining the scope of their participation to the Chambers. As result, the Court allowed victims to present and examine evidence on their initiative. However, no effort has been made, either at the icc or in the scholarship, to provide a justification for this modality of victims’ participation. This article posits that the icc’s approach to victims’ active role in the evidence-gathering process is key for expressivist purposes, which see victims as a crucial constituency of the trial, able to contributing to conveying disavowal of the atrocities committed, crafting historical records and reinforcing the respect for basic human rights. An expressivist foundation for this modality of victims’ participation has the potential to reinvigorate our understanding of the evidence-gathering process at the icc.