In Search of A ‘Just’ World: The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal and The Challenge to International Criminal Law

Abstract

International criminal law presents itself as the main global response to atrocity, yet its selective prosecutions, narrow construction of victimhood and focus on individual perpetrators leave structural injustice largely untouched. This article argues that this doctrinal and institutional focus produces a form of structural impunity, particularly in relation to harms suffered by migrants. It develops this claim through a close reading of the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal’s (PPT) 2017–2020 sessions on the rights of migrants and refugee peoples. Using a doctrinal and critical-interpretive method, the article analyses the Tribunal’s legal basis in the law of peoples, its construction of migrants as victims of systemic injustice, and its articulation of ‘system crimes’ that are rooted in economic, political and legal structures rather than isolated acts. The article shows how the PPT attributes responsibility to European states and institutions for a migration regime that predictably produces deaths at sea, abuses in detention and degrading living conditions. It argues that the Tribunal advances a model of corrective distributive justice that links accountability to structural repair and redistribution. The conclusion suggests that a credible international justice project must move beyond retributive trials to confront the global structures that sustain violence and inequality.