Whose Number is it anyway?: Common Legal Representation, Consultations and the “Statistical Victim"

Ensuring effective and meaningful participation by large numbers of victims of international crimes continues to pose significant challenges for the International Criminal Court (ICC). This is evident in the implementation of provisions in the ICC’s Rules of Procedure and Evidence concerning the appointment of lawyers to represent victim participants. These allow the Chamber to request victims to choose common representation. Making provision for victims to choose is, however, far easier than ensuring that choice is appropriately achieved in practice. Typically the ICC’s Registry consults with victims before presenting a report for consideration by the Chamber. These reports may, as in the proceedings in the Ntaganda case considered here, contain statistical indicators to express some of the outcomes of its consultations with victims. This practice, has, we suggest, resulted in the emergence of what can be termed the ‘statistical victim’. Consultations with victims are important and welcome. However, we strike a cautionary note about the turn to statistics. The use of statistics can bolster institutional interests in debates about representation, thereby impacting upon the portrayal (and therefore the management) of dissent on the part of victim participants at the ICC. This is a matter of particular concern when what is at stake is how victims might be able to contest the current arrangements in place for their legal representation. In highlighting the emergence of the ‘statistical victim’ we seek to contribute to wider debates about the representation of victims in international criminal law as well as indirectly to discussions about measuring victim satisfaction.