ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the analysis of the archival data including the international criminal tribunals (ICTR) rules of procedure and evidence. Specifically, it explores the discursive conditions that constitute the witness as the subject position of discourse. The chapter highlights an important disjuncture between redress for victims-witnesses as sufferers of violations and witnesses as discursive objects of legal knowledge. The common claim in the legal scholarship, such as that of Klinkner and Smith, suggests that international criminal courts and tribunals do two things in relation to facilitating the right to truth: upholding the core principle of universality and giving victims a site from which they can tell their story (agency). According to advocates international criminal institutions are embodied with the universality of legal and human rights norms. The universality of human rights, here the right to truth, is seen as a positive and fundamental component to international criminal institutions facilitating the right to truth for all victims.
