Abstract

This paper explores the therapeutic benefits for child victims of pursuing international criminal justice remedies for genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated against children. The paper suggests that pursuing such judicial remedies as ‘victim participants’ rather than exclusively as ‘victim witnesses’ at the International Criminal Court at The Hague serves the therapeutic function of allowing the child victim to advocate on his or her own behalf and on behalf of other similarly situated child victims thus enhancing the child’s sense of perceived control. The foregoing then serves to validate the child’s perception of his or her own undeserved suffering; legitimate the child’s claim to societal recognition of that suffering and affirm the child’s entitlement to a judicious international criminal court remedy.