Witnessing Practices at the 1967 Russell Tribunal on American War Crimes in Vietnam
EV PhD student Leyla Belle Drake has “nailed” her PhD thesis: it is now announced and handed over to the university library. She will defend her thesis on September 27, in the University Main Building (room IX), at 13:00.
The back cover text:
In 1967, a group of prominent intellectuals, activists, artists, and scientists from across the world came together to investigate the ongoing war in Vietnam. Inspired by the postwar prosecution of Nazi officials at Nuremberg, the 1967 Russell Tribunal used the form and language of international law to document and dramatically publicize American transgressions in Vietnam. The Russell Tribunal’s immediate aims were to incite mass resistance against the war and exert political pressure on Washington. The ultimate objectives were to stop the war and advance national self-determination in Vietnam and elsewhere. To achieve these ends Tribunal organizers assembled a plurality of witnesses who appeared at public sessions in Scandinavia. Insisting that no witness competent to testify would be denied a hearing, the Russell Tribunal pioneered new forms of protest and established a platform for antiwar politics.
In Any Witness Competent to Testify, Leyla Belle Drake reexamines the 1967 Russell Tribunal by delving into its witnessing practices. She unpacks the histories and logics of the Russell Tribunal’s main witness categories – experts, on-site investigators, perpetrators, and victims – and traces those witness figures in war crimes trials, anticolonial activism, transitional justice, and human rights work across the global twentieth century. Drake shows how witnessing as a political device took shape in a brief window of revolutionary aspiration in the 1960s.
