Bartels: Balancing Prejudice: Fair Trial Rights and International Procedural Decisions Relating to Evidence

Rogier Bartels (Univ. of Amsterdam - Amsterdam Center for International Law) has posted Balancing Prejudice: Fair Trial Rights and International Procedural Decisions Relating to Evidence (in Defendants and Victims in International Criminal Justice: Ensuring and Balancing Their Rights, Juan Pablo Perez-Leon-Acevedo & Joanna Nicholson eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This paper, which will feature in an edited volume addressing the balancing of the rights of accused persons and of victims of crimes allegedly committed by these persons, discusses the concept of prejudice as concerns procedural matters relating to evidence in international criminal law, and before the International Criminal Court (ICC) specifically. When a (trial) chamber assesses the potential prejudice an action of a party to the proceedings or a procedural decision of the chamber will cause, it is effectively carrying out a balancing exercise, as it looks at the interest of the accused on one side and those of the Prosecution and/or victims on the other. The question is therefore when a matter, such as the admission of an item into evidence, is so prejudicial that is must be considered as is undue prejudice and thereby militating against admission. The present paper further discusses whether prejudice can only be suffered by the accused, or also by others, such as the Prosecution or – through their legal representatives – victims, by analyzing to whom fair trial rights extend.