ABSTRACT
The purpose of this chapter is to provide a reasoned assessment of the relevance and applicability of conventional notions and justifications for punishment as they relate to institutionalised forms of international sentencing.1 Recent analyses have revealed consistent obfuscation in the penal justifications advanced by sentencers in the ICTY and ICTR (Beresford, 2002; van Zyl Smit, 2002; Henham, 2003). In particular, I have argued that some ideological and theoretical accommodation and the rationalisation of process is necessary in order to forge meaningful concepts and practices of internationalisation in sentencing (Henham, 2003a). There is common agreement that current international sentencing praxis is characterised by tension at the levels of ideology, policy and structure. Failure to rationalise philosophical justifications for international sentencing, the politicisation of process and an absence of accountability limit not only the potential for the rational development of sentencing jurisprudence at the international level, but also constructive engagement with alternative sentencing justifications and paradigms.2
