Kate Gibson, in her exceptionally perceptive and thought-provoking article “How Do You Sleep at Night? Representing Accused before the International Courts”, illuminates the emotional states, challenges, and hardships experienced by defence counsel representing clients before international criminal courts and tribunals. A particularly valuable aspect of her article is that it is grounded in her own personal and practical perspective. Gibson draws on many years of extensive experience as defence counsel for some of the most notorious alleged war criminals associated with some of the darkest chapters of modern history. Among others, she represented the former President of Liberia, Charles Taylor, during his appeal before the Special Court for Sierra Leone; served as counsel to Radovan Karadžić in his appeal before the UN Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals in The Hague; and, as one of the youngest lead counsel before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, represented the former Rwandan minister Justin Mugenzi[1].
[1] More about her previous career on her website: https://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/barristers/kate-gibson-associate
Emotional labour – the management of one’s emotions and the display of emotions that are socially, culturally, or organisationally acceptable or desirable.
In the article, Gibson recounts the moment when the judgment in the appeal proceedings was delivered, during which she served as associate counsel to former Vice-President of the Congo, Jean-Pierre Bemba before the Appeals Chamber of the ICC. When the Chamber announced its decision to acquit Bemba of all charges and ordered his release, she was overwhelmed with emotion after nearly a decade of work on a case she describes as “long, exhausting and
Low and emotions
For a long time, the legal profession was characterised by the belief that law is inherently rational and logical, while emotions—owing to their perceived unpredictability and unreliability—were thought to have no place within it. This dichotomy between emotion and reason is deeply rooted in Western society, with its origins reaching back to Ancient Greece. Over time, however, a substantial body of scholarship began to emerge within legal studies, led by researchers such as Susan Bandes and Terry A. Maroney, giving rise to an independent interdisciplinary field known as Law and Emotion.
Despite the growing acceptance of emotions within legal practice, legal professionals’ emotions are still largely perceived as “unnatural” and inappropriate. Even though recent research has consistently documented that legal practitioners frequently encounter, as well as experience, intense emotions such as anger, fear, sadness, and disgust, professional codes of ethics, legislation, institutional policies, and the broader intangible legal culture continue to impose strict behavioural and emotional expectations on lawyers in practice. They are expected to demonstrate professionalism, objectivity, and impartiality while preserving the dignity and reputation of the institution. This frequently requires them to suppress personal or otherwise “inappropriate” emotions and to maintain professional distance from both clients and colleagues. These expectations, which Arlie Hochschild termed feeling rules, profoundly shape legal practice by encouraging legal practitioners to engage in emotional labour.
different legal cultures may accept different emotions as compatible with the professional role
Feeling rules prescribe what constitutes appropriate and desirable emotional expression in a particular situation or relationship. They are socially, organisationally, and culturally constructed, meaning that they may differ across legal systems and professional contexts. Consequently, different legal cultures may accept different emotions as compatible with the professional role, prescribe varying degrees of emotional expression, or attach different meanings to the same emotional display.
Emotional Labour in the context of international and domestic criminal systems
The emotional challenges faced by international criminal defence lawyers, described by Gibson in the aforementioned article—both those she encountered in her own practice and those that emerged from conversations with her professional colleagues—can be closely linked to the particular feeling rules that characterise the legal profession, the nature of international criminal practice itself, the dynamics of criminal proceedings, and the expectations of clients as well as the wider public.
Among other issues, Gibson addresses the personal and professional burdens inherent in this work, including internal and moral dilemmas, the constant presence of the client—or accused—and their expectations throughout the proceedings, the process of gathering evidence in countries that have experienced genocide or other mass atrocities, and repeated exposure to deeply traumatic material. Maintaining professional composure while ensuring a high standard of legal representation requires considerable effort—an effort that could aptly be described as emotional labour, even though the author does not explicitly employ the term.
International criminal law, which developed primarily in the aftermath of World War II and is engaged in response to the gravest crimes against humanity, is intrinsically concerned with acts that evoke profound emotional responses. Indeed, the Preamble to the Rome Statute (1998) expressly refers to “unimaginable atrocities that deeply shock the conscience of humanity.” Legal professionals working on international criminal cases are exposed over extended periods to vast amounts of profoundly traumatic material. They perform their work under the close scrutiny of the international legal community and the broader public, while the decisions they make may carry profound and long-lasting legal, social, and political consequences.
Although Gibson’s article is based on the experiences of international criminal defence lawyers operating within the distinct universe of international criminal law—where the gravest international crimes are prosecuted—it was striking to see the extent to which her observations resonate with empirical research on the emotional labour of criminal justice professionals working at lower levels of national legal systems.
Emotional Labour across different legal roles
As I observed in my own research on the emotional labour of criminal justice professionals in the Slovenian criminal justice system (2023–2024), each professional legal role entails its own distinct emotional demands, even though these professions are shaped by many of the same emotional expectations and feeling rules. This is influenced by the characteristics of the professional role itself, such as whether it is exercised within the public or the private sector—with the latter bringing the additional pressure of securing an income—as well as by the specific dynamics and demands of the work and the particular function that the role performs within the criminal process.
From an institutional perspective, the most notable differences emerge between defence lawyers on the one hand, and judges and prosecutors on the other. As Gibson also observes in her article, judges and prosecutors may, in certain respects, occupy a more privileged position than defence lawyers due to the institutional support available to them, including organisational leadership and the backing of a broader professional team. They are also spared the pressures of competing in the legal market to secure their own financial livelihood—a reality that inevitably brings with it the need to satisfy clients. Consequently, defence lawyers may be regarded as some of the most visible practitioners of emotional labour within the criminal justice process.
Judges’ emotions: emotional labour and decision-making
Judges are subject to particularly stringent behavioural and emotional expectations.
As Terry A. Maroney (2013: 100) aptly observes, “Judicial emotion generally is seen as an unfortunate consequence of having to populate the legal system with fallible, biased, real people.” In order to maintain the appearance of impartiality and objectivity, and to project professionalism before the parties and the wider public, judges often feel compelled to conceal their personal emotions—not only those regarded as negative, but also emotions such as empathy towards one of the parties.
Some judges perceive it as part of their judicial duty not only to regulate their own emotions but also to manage those of other participants in the proceedings, thereby ensuring that the hearing progresses smoothly and that order is maintained in the courtroom. Judicial office demands the whole person. The distinction between the professional role and the individual often becomes blurred—a phenomenon that is by no means unique to judges, although it is particularly pronounced in their case. As a result, judicial identity frequently extends beyond the courtroom and shapes behaviour in private life as well. This can be especially restrictive for judges serving in smaller communities and close-knit legal circles, where professional and personal spheres are more difficult to separate.
This also raises an important question: to what extent might judges’ personal emotions—or, more precisely, the emotional labour required of them throughout criminal proceedings—influence judicial decision-making and, ultimately, the outcome of a case? This is a fascinating avenue for future research, although one that would undoubtedly present significant methodological challenges given the inherent difficulty of studying subjective emotional processes.
Some final thoughts
The growing discussion surrounding the emotions of criminal justice professionals—and the broader effort to demystify their emotional lives—is essential both for their well-being and for recognising emotional labour as a legitimate workplace issue. This is particularly important in light of research consistently showing that legal professionals report poorer mental health than the general population, including higher rates of depression, burnout, and substance misuse (James, 2008; Jones et al., 2020). Emotional labour is, in itself, associated with a range of potential psychological and social costs. These risks are likely to be amplified within criminal justice, where professionals work in an inherently stressful, fast-paced, and high-stakes environment.
For this reason, I wholeheartedly agree with one of Gibson’s concluding observations: that we should move beyond equating legal impartiality (and professionalism) with the absence of emotion. Rather than treating the emotions of legal professionals as something to be concealed or ignored—as though they were not, first and foremost, human beings with the same emotional capacities and vulnerabilities as everyone else—we should pay closer attention to the role, significance, and effects of emotions and emotional labour. This matters not only for the well-being of legal professionals themselves, but also for the relationships they build with colleagues and participants in criminal proceedings, and potentially for the conduct and outcomes of those proceedings.
Recognising this reality should also encourage us to develop more appropriate education and training for criminal justice professionals, alongside institutional support that equips them to navigate the emotional demands of their work. In doing so, we would not only improve their own well-being but also enable them to provide more effective support to the individuals who come into contact with the criminal justice system.
Literature
Bandes, Susan A., and Jeremy A. Blumenthal. “Emotion and the Law.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 8 (2012): 161–181.
Gibson, Kate. “How Do You Sleep at Night? Representing Accused before the International Courts.” Journal of International Criminal Justice 00 (2026): 1–18.
Goffman, Erving. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1959.
Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983.
James, Colin G. “Lawyer Dissatisfaction, Emotional Intelligence and Clinical Legal Education.” Legal Education Review18 (2008): 123–137.
Jones, Emma, Nick Graffin, Rachael Samra, and M. Lucassen. Mental Health and Wellbeing in the Legal Profession. 1st ed. Bristol: Bristol University Press, 2020.
Maroney, Terry A. “The Emotionally Intelligent Judge: A New (and Realistic) Ideal.” Court Review 49 (2013): 100–113.
Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Preamble, adopted July 17, 1998, last amended 2024. International Criminal Court edition
written by Lovrena Jeromelj
