Dr Benjamin Thorne
- Lecturer in Criminal Law
- AcademicTutor
Areas of interest
Benjamin is an interdisciplinary scholar with main themes of interest within (international) criminal law and justice, socio-legal studies, transitional justice, and critical theory. One area of focus for him is the connections between memory, transitional justice, and legal atrocity archives. Related, Benjamin is the author of the recently published monograph with Routledge, The Figure of the Witness in International Criminal Tribunals: Memory, Atrocities and Transitional Justice (2022). This book, which combines disciplinary approaches from international criminal law, social and cultural studies, and memory studies, investigates the way in which the pre-trial process at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda set up conditions for how individual memories of human rights violations are collectively understood.
A current area of interest explores the connections between colonial historical injustices, social movements and attempts at remedy, with a particular contextual focus within Kenya. Related, this research also investigates laws silence/absence for colonial historical harm and the role that cultural restitution could play as a response to these absences.
More generally, Benjamin is interested in questions around visuals, sounds, as well as the broader sensory field, in how people experience crime, law and justice, particular in the international context. Currently, Benjamin is conducting collaborative research exploring the role visuals arts can have as a form of justice for victims of sexual violence committed during conflict. Furthermore, he is working on research through artistic expression exploring themes of memory, human senses and legal archive material and which has been published with the Law and Humanities Journal. Related an ongoing area of exploration is participatory arts methods in the context legal archive material from atrocity trials and their potential use by local communities.
Postgraduate supervision
Benjamin welcomes proposals from prospective doctoral students with an interest in international criminal law/justice, transitional justice, international human rights, socio-legal studies, interdisciplinary approaches, creative and alternative research methodology
Teaching
- Criminal Law
- English Legal Systems and Skills
Background
Benjamin joined the University of Reading in 2024 as a Lecturer in Criminal Law, having previously held the position of Lecturer in Law at the University of Kent. He completed his ESRC funded PhD in Law at the University of Sussex in 2020. Previously, Benjamin was a Visiting Researcher at University of Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, and the Aegis Trust (Rwanda) Peace Education Team.
Selected publications
Monograph
- Thorne, B. 2022. The Figure of the Witness in International Criminal Tribunals: Memory, Atrocities and Transitional Justice. Routledge, Transitional Justice Book Series.
Journal articles
- Thorne, B., 2022. The Art of Plurality: Participation, Community and Memory in the Aftermath of Atrocity Crimes. Conflict, Security, Development Journal
- Thorne, B., 2021. An Atrocity Archive: Sensory Expression of Past-Present-Future. Law and Humanities.
- Thorne, B., 2021. Liberal international criminal law and legal memory: deconstructing the production of witness memories at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Journal of the British Academy.
- Thorne, B. 2020. Remembering atrocities: legal archives and the discursive conditions of witnessing. The International Journal of Human Rights, 25(3), pp.467-490.
Book Chapters
- Thorne, B., (forthcoming). Sensorial Justice: Legal Atrocity Archives and Relational Memory in Fractured Societies, in Senses and Memory. Vernon Press .
- Thorne, B., 2023. The Possibilities and Conditions of Becoming a Witness. Elgar Research Handbook on Transitional justice 2nd Edition.
- Thorne, B., 2019. Human Rights Reporting on Rwanda’s Gacaca Courts: A Story of Stagnation andFailure’ Thorne and Viebach 2019, in ‘Rwanda Since 1994: Stories of Change’ Edited by Hannah Grayson and Nicki Hitchcott. Liverpool University Press –
Research Briefing Report and Other Publications
- Lühe, U., Viebach, J., Thorne, B., Hovestädt, D. and Ott, L., 2018. Atrocity's Archives: The Role of Archives in Transitional Justice. Guidance Note. - https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/atrocitys_archives_guidance_note-23july18.pdf
- Online Capacity Building Resource, ‘The Archives We Built’: Video interviews co-produced by Atrocities Archives Project Team (2018) - https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/the-archives-we-built
Blog
- Thorne, B and Mulcahy, S. 2023. Lost for Words: Performing Verbatim Court Transcripts. Socio-Legal Studies Association Blog - https://slsablog.co.uk/blog/blog-posts/lost-for-words-performing-verbatim-court-transcripts/#:~:text=This%20live%20reading%2C%20the%20entirety,of%2020th%20century%20atrocities.
- Evans, M, and Thorne, B. 2022 (long read blog). The Pitfalls and Potential of Researching and Teaching Stuff. Evans and Thorne. LaPSe of Reason Blog - https://lawpoliticsandsociology.wordpress.com/2022/11/17/the-pitfalls-and-potential-of-researching-and-teaching-stuff/
- Thorne, B. 2021. Sensing Justice: Feeling the Archive. Sensory Criminology - https://sensorycriminology.com/2021/08/09/sensing-justice-feeling-the-archive/
Media
- Invited guest on LawPod podcast series, episode title 'Archives and Transitional Justice'. (Release date: April 2021) - http://lawpod.org/?name=2021-04-29_archives_in_transitional_justice.mp3