Victimology of Atrocity Crimes

Abstract Recent years have seen a flourishing interest in victimology—the social science of the experience of suffering wrongdoing—of atrocity crimes. However, like victimology more generally, supranational victimology is still in its infancy. This chapter draws upon the phenomenology of Susan Brison to develop ethical experience of victimization of victims of atrocity crimes. In this perspective a key ethical quality of victimization is its nature as an ontological assault, an attack on being that reveals features of being in precisely what it damages/diminishes/destroys. This has implications for the reactions to atrocity crimes, such as various initiatives to deliver justice to victims. The chapter develops the differences between countering injustice and doing justice, and sketches how processes of justice given their inherent limitations can contribute to counter injustice.