Favorable treatment of The International Criminal Court
(ICC) has begun to appear in American popular culture. In the last three
months, this has happened in two thriller novels and a movie. This blog discusses
this phenomenon through these books and the film. In particular, we consider whether
it may be important in making the American public aware of the ICC through what
it reads and watches.
The movie is The
Hitman’s Bodyguard. In it, Michael Bryce (played by Ryan Reynolds) is hired
as a bodyguard to transport a notorious hitman, Darius Kincaid (Samuel L
Jackson) to The Hague. Kincaid is to testify in the trial of Vladislav
Dukhovich (Gary Oldman) a dictator from Belarus accused of crimes against
humanity. It opened on August 18, 2017. On its opening weekend, admittedly a
slow one at the box office, it was the first place earner with a gross of $21,384,504.
(The Hitman's Bodyguard Official Poster, sourced from IMDB.
<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1959563/>)
The movie is firmly
within the genre of action comedy, under the direction of Australian Patrick
Hughes, who also directed The Expendables
3. It has a cast of stars with Ryan
Reynolds, Gary Oldman, Samuel L Jackson and Salma Hayek The movie has been
received in a form typical to the genre, reviews ranging from below average to
just slightly above. The New York Times review stated, “It occupies its genre
niche – the exuberantly violent Euro-action movie-star-paycheck action comedy –
without excessive cynicism or annoying pretension.”
Irrespective of the film’s reception by the industry, it is
a movie about getting a witness to an international trial. Kincaid’s
motivations compromises the force of this theme. The character’s impetus is not from a strong
sense of justice and a desire to end impunity; he is only willing to testify to
the Court to exonerate his wife, Sonia Kincaid, played by Salma Hayek. The film
does however deal with the very serious issue of witness protection, something
that is well - known to and greatly concerns those familiar with the ICC.
Reviews and various synopses of the movie reveal that
reviewers and publicists know little about the ICC. They are confused about the
Court in The Hague where Kincaid is going to testify. In researching this film
some media outlets state that Kincaid is going to testify at the ICC, other say
that Kincaid and Bryce are trying to get to the International Court of Justice,
and some just use the catchall of “The Hague”. Production Notes from Lionsgate,
the movie’s distributor, do not clarify what Court the film is dealing with;
simply stating that it is a “raucous and hilarious adventure from England to
the Hague.” It is telling that even at a press release level, the jurisdiction
and functions of those two international courts is confused. The film itself
makes specifically clear that it is about a trial at the ICC. Moreover, it is
about the trial of an individual, whereas the jurisdiction of the International
Court of Justice is limited to disputes between states.
The confusion about the Court is just one of a few
misconceptions about the structures and functions of international law and
enforcement expressed within the film. For example, its use of Interpol agents
was misleading. However, the significance of the movie remains in its positive
portrayal of the ICC. Even having regard to the irony of two characters acting
with impunity to get to a Court whose sole mandate is to end international
impunity, the movie does familiarize the American audience with the existence
of the Court.
This familiarization may be even better furthered by the two
novels: Scott Turow’s Testimony and
Terry Jastrow’s The Trial of Prisoner 043.
Both are fictional novels that deal directly with the jurisdiction and judicial
functions of the ICC. Testimony is
about the ICC trial of the Bosnian genocide. It has been reviewed by the New
York Times as a “fast-paced, well researched and, like the background it
describes, distinctly tangled. This is a crime novel that requires a level of
concentration and engagement with international politics some readers may balk
at.” Scott Turow is a famous author of thriller novels. He is also a lawyer who
still maintains a small private practice and most of his books have legal
themes. His readership is in the millions. Testimony
is not his best work, but still achieved a week on the New York best- seller
list. Turow spent time at the Court and
his description of the Court is fairly good, giving readers a reasonable sense
of how the Court works. Moreover, both in the text and in an Author’s Note
there is warm and well-informed praise of the Court and sharp criticism of the
US refusal to join it.
The Trial of Prisoner
043 presents a fictional ICC trial of George W. Bush for war crimes
committed during the Iraq war. The Trial
of Prisoner 043 been reviewed by one critic as “an interesting thought
experiment, [that] is not successful as a legal novel.” Both novels are
inaccurate in their description of testimony at the Court. The Trial of Prisoner 043 is especially so with testimony consisting
only of long arguments pro and con on the invasion of Iraq under George W. Bush.
Whatever their merits or demerits in describing the Court,
here are two novelists who are very concerned about the size of their
readership and a director anxious to produce the end-of-summer blockbuster
action movie. None of them apparently feared public hostility to their work
because the ICC was a large feature of it. They probably knew nothing about
polls showing high levels of popular approval of the Court, but their instincts
about the public told them that there was no threat of such hostility. It is
too early to draw final conclusions from this, but we are now on notice to see
if it becomes a trend to support our advocacy.
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