Demographic evidence in war-crimes trials

CPC member, Dr Jakub Bijak, recently gave a talk as part of the Minnesota Population Center's seminar series, entitled 'Numbers in Court: Demographic Evidence in War-Crimes Trials'.

The seminar, which took place on 18 August, saw Dr Bijak discuss the role of demographic evidence in selected war-crimes trials, with focus on the work carried out at the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In particular, he concentrated on the limitations of different types of demographic evidence from the legal point of view - but also to the great power of reliable numbers in addressing legal questions related to large-scale war crimes.

The talk was set within the context that population consequences of armed conflicts have long been of interest to historical demographers. The early 21st century has seen an increasing momentum of research in this field, and the rise of demography of conflict and violence as a standalone area of population enquiries. Currently, this area of work is developing rapidly, aided by the proliferation of demographic and statistical methods that can be applied; and by the current practice of international tribunals to commission expert demographers to provide their analysis, in addition to expert historians.

A video of the talk is currently available to view on the Minnesota Population Center website.

Posted 04/09/2015 13:02