ABSTRACT
The preceding chapter argued that the instrumental power of judicial discretion for determining the form and significance of decision-making in international criminal trials should be harnessed to forge rationalisations for sentencing that facilitate the reconciliation of competing paradigms for justice. This proposes a conceptualisation of sentencing that is reflexive, possessing the capacity for dynamic and creative resolutions and strategies that address the consequences of social conflict and breaches of international humanitarian law. So conceived, international punishment and process would no longer be as a symbolic forum for acting out the rhetoric of positivist law; it would instead be socially responsive, morally sensitive and culturally relevant. Thus, sentencing as a processual reality would facilitate the relative engagement of contexts, placing constantly varying demands on sentencers to devise morally acceptable outcomes to reconcile the demands for local justice with more universal aspirations for international justice.
