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Between September 2006 and December 2008, Simon Bikindi stood trial
at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, accused of
inciting genocide with his songs. In the early 1990s, Bikindi had
been one of Rwanda's most well-known and popular figures - the
country's minister for culture and its most famous and respected
singer. But by the end of 1994, his songs had quite literally
soundtracked a genocide. Acoustic Jurisprudence is the first
detailed study of the trial that followed. It is also the first
work of contemporary legal scholarship to address the many
relations between law and sound, which are of much broader
importance but which this trial very conspicuously raises. One half
of the book addresses the Tribunal's 'sonic imagination'. How did
the Tribunal conceive of Bikindi's songs for the purposes of
judgment? How did it understand the role of radio and other media
in their transmission? And with what consequences for Bikindi? The
other half of the book is addressed to how such concerns played out
in court. Bikindi's was a 'musical trial', as one judge pithily
observed. Audio and audio-visual recordings of his songs were
played regularly throughout. Witnesses, including Bikindi himself,
frequently sang, both of their own accord and at the request of the
Tribunal. Indeed, Bikindi even sang his final statement. All the
while, judges, barristers, and witnesses alike spoke into
microphones and listened through headphones. As a result, the
Bikindi case offers an ideal opportunity to explore what this book
calls the 'judicial soundscape'. Through the lens of the Bikindi
trial, the book's most important innovation is to open up the field
of sound to jurisprudential inquiry. Ultimately, it is an argument
for a specifically acoustic jurisprudence.
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