Towards a Transdisciplinary Method in Criminal Law Research: A Study of the Origins of the Enforcement of Sentences in International Criminal Law

Abstract

This article grapples with a fundamental methodological question at the heart of interdisciplinary legal scholarship: when studying the historical origins of the enforcement of sentences in international criminal law, should researchers employ the tools of social-science criminology or those of legal history? This question is weighed in relation to its applicability to a research project examining post-WWII incarceration practices at three landmark detention facilities: Spandau, Landsberg, and Sugamo. The author traces the contours of the venerable debate on the relationship between social science and history and finds widespread agreement among contemporary academics that the boundaries between the two disciplines are highly permeable and mutually enriching. Nor do the features of the research project in question—its interdisciplinary, international character, its interplay of past and present—compel a preference for one approach over the other. Researchers enjoy considerable methodological flexibility, and by navigating “the exciting border regions between the disciplines” of social science, history, and jurisprudence, they can only increase their scholarly yield.