Noam Wiener is a doctoral student at the University of Michigan Law School. He spent two months at The Hague interviewing judges and practitioners at international tribunals.

Noam Wiener

PhD Student, U-M Law School
International Institute Individual Fellowship

How did the International Institute Individual Fellowship enrich your experience as a student? What was your greatest takeaway?

The vast majority of legal research is conducted in libraries. To understand and critique the penal practices of the international criminal tribunals, common practice would be to read court decisions, then read critiques of these same decisions in academic journals before coming to a conclusion based on some sort of normative stance on an issue.

By interviewing practitioners at The Hague, I was able to tap the minds of judges at the international criminal tribunals and understand how they decide on a specific sentence. This experience was very different from the research I usually conduct in the library. It brought the theories I was reading about to life. This research helped me uncover the vast differences in opinion among these practitioners regarding questions of punishment and how much room there is for research in this area.