1 - Introduction

Summary

Why is it unremarkable for the prosecutor of the world’s first permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) to be described as a salesman? Why does it appear normal for the last surviving prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials, Benjamin Ferencz, to use marketing terminology to state ‘my slogan has always been “law not war”’. Equally unremarkable is the claim of the second chief prosecutor of the ICC that ‘[t]he return on our investment for what others may today consider to be a huge cost for justice is effective deterrence and saving millions of victims’ lives’. And, it seems entirely ordinary – if rather comical – that a poster for a documentary on the ICC should depict a judge, the chief prosecutor, and the deputy prosecutor standing resolutely against a black background, half turned sideways to the viewer – a scene reminiscent of a movie poster of a John Grisham-meets-Goodfellas adaptation.