What does it mean to appear as a witness in front of an international criminal tribunal? What does this testimony entail, and what are its consequences for the witnesses themselves? Most of the extensive literature on international war crimes tribunals so far has been on the courts themselves, on their impact on societies of victims and perpetrators, on international law, on prospects for justice and reconciliation, or on historical narratives. We know very little about (and nobody seemed to have been particularly interested in) the people who make these cases possible—the thousands of people who have stepped forward to provide witness testimony about the horrendous crimes against humanity they have witnessed and, most often, been the victims of themselves. These testimonies come at a huge personal cost—emotional, political, social, financial—and have remained largely unexamined in the rapidly expanding transitional justice literature (with the notable exception of Eric Stover’s The Witnesses: War Crimes and the Promise of Justice in The Hague, 2005).

The Witness Experience by Kimi Lynn King and James David Meernik fills this gap by offering a comprehensive analysis of the many ways, good and bad, in which testifying in front of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the Hague has impacted those who witnessed crimes against humanity. Written in cooperation with the ICTY’s Victims and Witnesses Section, the book provides an in-depth analysis into the physical, psychological, and social impact that such testimony had on these witnesses, and suggests what international courts can do better to encourage witnesses to come forward, but also to protect them from harm.

The book’s organization is straightforward: Chapter 1 (pp. 1–36) introduces the witness survey, the basis for the book’s findings, and explains survey methodology. The witnesses were asked a battery of questions—149 multiple-choice questions, 37 follow-up questions, and 31 opportunities to follow up with their own comments on the experience. The survey gathered their background and motivation for testifying and asked about the impact that testifying had on their socioeconomic situation, their security, and their psychological and emotional health, as well as their own perception of the process and verdicts rendered at the ICTY.

Chapter 2 (pp. 37–51) focuses on the most vulnerable groups surveyed (victims of sexual violence, and targeted minorities) and discusses the particular trauma they have endured. In Chapter 3 (pp. 52–84), we learn about the process that the witnesses went through in their dealings with the court—sometimes smooth, sometimes very thorny. Chapter 4 (pp. 85–117) analyzes the impact—physical, social, and economic—of bearing witness. Chapters 5 and 6 (pp. 118–77) take a larger view to consider the political impact on postconflict communities, and on transitional justice more broadly, of testifying, as well as the witnesses’ own perception of the process and of any “justice” rendered in The Hague.

The survey instrument was done with a great deal of care—and in close cooperation with the ICTY’s own Victims and Witnesses unit. And indeed, the book’s principal contribution is exactly the extensive nature of the survey—both in terms of numbers of witnesses interviewed (302) and also of their characteristics, including many protected witnesses who normally would not be available for interviews to scholars, but in this case were due to the cooperation between the authors and the ICTY’s witness unit. It is this deep access to witnesses that makes this study unique.

The authors, however, are keen for the book to speak to larger theoretical debates in transitional justice scholarship. To that end, they frame their analysis through three key factors—ethnicity, gender, and trauma—and invite the readers to interpret the survey findings with these factors in mind. Ethnicity, gender, and a particularly traumatic experience were why most of the witnesses were called to testify in the first place. Their testimonies need to be viewed through these frameworks, and so does their own evaluation of their experience and perceptions of justice, fairness, and truth finding at the tribunal.

So what are the findings from this survey and why are they important? Perhaps surprising to the increasingly critical edge of transitional justice scholarship, King and Meernik find that witnesses were largely satisfied with their experience with the ICTY, and that this finding is especially high for witnesses who suffered the most trauma during the war. A substantial majority of witnesses also report no significant harm (physical, economic, or social) from testifying, but there remains an important minority (more then 12%) that do—which should be an issue of continuing concern for international, and other, war crimes tribunals.

The Witness Experience also demonstrates that witnesses’ attitudes about the process and legacy of the ICTY are mixed—they largely see the ICTY as being a successful deterrent to future crimes, but largely unsuccessful at sentencing—a criticism of the tribunal that has increased as the court itself began to use plea bargain deals more frequently, which has dramatically lowered the sentences of the convicted. But even these results are contextualized and theoretically important: The two most significant determinants of witness perception are ethnicity (Bosniacs are vastly more likely to support the ICTY than Serbs along most dimensions) and the effectiveness of their own testimony (whether the witnesses think that they have contributed to the mission, which impacts their view of the court). These findings add nuance to the general understanding of how the ICTY is perceived among the public.

As the court has finally closed its doors in 2018, this is going to be one of many books to evaluate the legacy of the court, the problems it encountered, and the lessons that can be learned for other international courts, most immediately the International Criminal Court. This book, therefore, should be read as a part of this body of work. Its value is in adding an important dimension to the issue of ICTY legacy—the role of witnesses both as the core building blocks of cases processed in front of the court and also as evaluators of the court itself. And this is the contribution of the book—not in new theory building in transitional justice but in offering an important empirical intervention in discussions of the court’s legacy.

Herein lies, perhaps, one omission of the book: any critical engagement with the ICTY itself, or the Victims and Witnesses Section of the court that was the main data depository for the work. The ICTY itself was heavily involved in the book; the Victims and Witnesses unit developed the research tool, provided witness data to the authors, collected the data in interviews with witnesses, and provided the context for witnesses and the role of the unit itself. In many ways, then, the ICTY is the co-contributor of the study, which makes it difficult for the authors to critically evaluate it. In this otherwise very valuable study, King and Meernik, in my view, missed an opportunity to provide a critical self-reflection of this partnership, and to present the professional, methodological, and ethical dilemmas faced in working so closely with what, in many ways, was the object of their analysis. Despite this shortcoming, The Witness Experience is a valuable addition to the scholarship on the ICTY, as well as on transitional justice more broadly.