ABSTRACT
Trials against former leaders of a dictatorial regime are symbolic moments in the founding of a new political order. Beyond the classic functions of criminal justice (punishing the guilty, preventing similar deeds in the future and reinforcing respect for the law), these trials can also play an epistemic role in societies in transition.1 They constitute important processes of narrative construction, understood as “storytelling” (mise en récit) about injustice. The selection of the relevant facts at the trial, their legal characterization, and the assignation of blame by sentencing may constitute public affirmations of an official and normative version of events,2 which implicitly grants legitimacy to the values of the new democratic society. The Nuremberg trials or Adolf Eichmann’s conviction in Jerusalem are high impact examples of the way in which criminal proceedings have modeled public awareness of mass murder.3 Theoreticians of transitional justice believe that such trials largely contribute to the forging of a common historical memory of the recent past.4
