Judge Joanna Korner CMG QC
Her Honour Judge Joanna Korner CMG QC has a distinguished legal career spanning over four decades. She has been a judge of the Crown Court of England and Wales for over 26 years, in which capacity she decides the most serious criminal cases. In 2020, she was nominated by the Government of the United Kingdom for election to the judiciary of the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Judge Korner previously spent eight years as a Senior Prosecuting Trial Attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), acting as lead prosecutor in the trials of political and military leaders accused of the gravest international crimes. She also conducted assessments of the processing of war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina and assisted with the establishment of the War Crimes Section in that country’s Prosecutor’s Office.
Judge Korner is established as an expert on the conduct of long and complex trials and on the handling of vulnerable witnesses. She regularly provides advocacy training to judges and lawyers across the world, including to staff of UN Agencies, the ICTY and the ICC. In 2004, Judge Korner was appointed as a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG) for her services to international law. Follow her on Twitter @JudgeKorner
Judge Korner was profiled for ATLAS by Verity Robson, the Legal Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of the United Kingdom to the United Nations in Geneva. You can read more about Verity’s career at the end of the profile. Follow her on Twitter @VerityJRobson
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What pulled you to a career in international law, and what were your first steps?
Initially I worked in the English domestic courts as a criminal barrister for 25 years, covering the full range of crimes: sexual violence, fraud, murder. Then, one day in 1998, I found myself listening to Louise Arbour, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), in a debate with Steven Kay QC about the Tadić case at an International Bar Association conference in Vienna. She was one of the most impressive speakers I’d ever heard and I actually approached her afterwards – which is something I’d never done to someone I didn’t know at all – to say how impressive I thought she had been and how inspiring her work was.
A short time after, I was contacted by Geoffrey Nice, who had already gone to the Hague to prosecute a case at the ICTY (and who later prosecuted Milosevic). He asked me to organise advocacy training for the prosecutors there. In the course of that, I met Louise and her Deputy Prosecutor, Graham Blewitt: they asked if I would be prepared to come and prosecute a case at the Tribunal. And I thought, where else will I get the chance to prosecute someone for genocide? The the following year, Louise contacted me to say that Radoslav Brđjanin and Momir Talić had been arrested, and that was my first international case.
I stayed at the ICTY for nearly five years initially, before helping the Chief Prosecutor of Bosnia and Herzegovina set up their new War Crimes Section. I returned to practice in the UK and during that period became head of the International Faculty at the Advocacy Training Council, where I organised and taught advocacy courses for the ICC and the Special Court for Sierra Leone, as well as for the ICTY. In 2008 I returned to the ICTY to prosecute Mićo Stanišić and Stojan Župljanin.
What have been the high points of your career thus far?
My years at the ICTY were the defining experience of my life: I was dealing with truly historical events, and I knew that the ICTY was the only method by which any kind of justice could be brought to the victims. With every step we were genuinely developing international criminal law: there was almost nothing before to guide us except the Nuremberg Tribunals. We really had to invent new ways of working and of obtaining evidence internationally. For example, we just weren’t sure how the decisions which affected victims and witnesses had been taken by Bosnian Serbs, so we came up with a witness summons procedure to use for interviewing potential perpetrators under caution – from low-level officials all the way up to army colonels and high-ranking politicians.
What are some of the challenges that you’ve faced, and how have you tackled them?
One of the biggest was the same one faced by every woman of my generation: persuading the male-dominated legal profession of the mid-1970s that a woman could do the job just as well as a man. I was very lucky that the Chambers in which I did part of my pupillage had already had two or three women as tenants, so they were perhaps more open-minded than many.
Building a broad practice was also a challenge: I had to get out of being confined to the cases that were thought in those days to be those that women should do, which were mainly those about sexual violence – important cases, but limiting professionally. If you wanted to progress, then you needed a broader-based practice. The clerk in Chambers was largely responsible for the allocation of work, so I sat down with him one day and explained my ambition for a broader range of cases. He advocated for me and persuaded instructing solicitors to give me cases they might not otherwise have done.
Running a team for the first time was also a challenge: barristers usually work alone, or perhaps with one junior in support. My first prosecution at the ICTY was the first time I’d led a team, and by my second year there I was running several teams: one for each case I was prosecuting. I mainly learned by trial and error – learning to consult as well as to direct. And I took feedback: a case manager who helped with the administration of my main case gave me some honest tips, for which I was very grateful.
Another learning curve has been the development of humility: as an English barrister moving to an international court in the 1990s, I assumed that my education and training were going to be superior to those from elsewhere. But I came quickly to appreciate the ideas and input from those from different backgrounds, be those professional or geographical – I got some of my best advice from an interpreter!
Why do you think judicial diversity is important to the development and interpretation of international criminal law?
I was talking to Kimberly Prost the other day about just this question. And she said, “Why does no one ever ask if male judges are necessary?!” But this is where we’re starting from.
International criminal law has got to be seen to be transparent, inclusive and representative – and women form half the population. Diversity enhances both the legitimacy of court and the decisions that it makes. And a diverse bench enlarges the scope of discussion when you’re reaching decisions: speaking very generally, women can often have more empathy and understanding of what it means to be a victim.
The most important thing, of course, is to have a good judge, regardless of gender.
Do you have any advice for those, particularly women, who are embarking on a career in international criminal law?
Firstly, get a mentor: looking back, my career was advanced tremendously with the help of my mentor, who happened to be my supervisor during pupillage. She pushed, helped and advised me on what to do and how to do it.
Secondly, recognise that it’s a difficult field to break into now; there are so few tribunals left. Accept jobs which are stepping stones – an internship with an NGO, for example, might not be your ultimate goal, but it brings you contacts. Networking is half the battle. And don’t turn down an offer because you think, well, I can’t deal with it: accept the challenge.
Judge Korner was profiled for ATLAS by Verity Robson. Verity is the Legal Counsellor at the Permanent Mission of the United Kingdom to the United Nations in Geneva. She previously served as an international law adviser in the UK's Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Government Equalities Office, on an independent inquiry into alleged war crimes by British soldiers in Iraq, and with the Scottish Law Commission; and has worked for women's rights NGOs in the UK, India and Kenya. She holds master's degrees from the University of St Andrews and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, and a law degree from the University of Edinburgh. After completing her legal training with the Scottish Government, she was admitted as a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales and in Scotland. Follow her on Twitter @VerityJRobson