When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?
– commonly attributed to John Maynard Keynes
A montage is a sequence of separate images assembled to create a particular impression. Each image may be entirely authentic. The power of the montage lies not in fabrication, but in selection, arrangement, timing, and presentation. It does not merely depict reality; it constructs a narrative about reality.
That distinction matters, perhaps more than ever.
I deliberately borrow the French expression l’affaire. Like the great public affairs that have periodically consumed institutions, this has long since ceased to be merely an investigation into allegations. It has become a contest over narratives, institutional credibility, public legitimacy, and, ultimately, the ICC’s reputation.
When the allegations involving ICC Prosecutor Karim A.A. Khan KC first became public, I was genuinely surprised. I had known Khan professionally for many years. He was co-counsel in a case in which we spent countless hours together in court and during recesses. We were never friends outside the courtroom, but we worked alongside one another long enough for me to form an impression.
He always struck me as personable, approachable, and even-tempered. So when the allegations surfaced, my instinct – as both a lawyer and, more particularly, a career defense lawyer – was to extend the benefit of the doubt. Not because I believed he was incapable of misconduct. No one is. But because allegations are not evidence. Accusations, however serious, must ultimately be proved.
To this day, I have not seen the evidence. I am not privy to the investigative file. I do not know whether the allegations are true or false, nor whether they would meet the standard of proof required for conviction in a criminal court or any lesser standard in civil court or in disciplinary proceedings.
That remains my position today. But somewhere along the way, I changed my mind. Not about the allegations. I simply do not know enough to reach a conclusion. I changed my mind about Khan. What altered my view was not that he defended himself. Every accused person has that right. I have spent my professional life insisting upon it. It was the manner in which the defense unfolded.
The repeated claims of exoneration. The carefully timed interviews. The public messaging. And, significantly, the steady stream of strategically advantageous disclosures appearing through Middle East Eye – a publication that, at least from the outside looking in, has come to occupy for Khan much the same role that Fox News has often occupied for President Trump: a media platform through which favorable narratives, exclusive accounts, and timely disclosures repeatedly seem to find their way into the public domain.
Whether that perception is entirely fair is almost beside the point. But perceptions do matter, especially for someone occupying one of the most consequential prosecutorial offices in international law.
None of this means Khan is guilty. Nor does it mean he acted improperly by responding publicly. But there is a meaningful difference between defending oneself and appearing to conduct a parallel campaign in the court of public opinion while institutional processes remain underway.
For someone entrusted with leading the International Criminal Court (ICC) Office of the Prosecutor, that distinction is not trivial. It goes directly to judgment. In positions of institutional leadership, judgment is every bit as important as legal acumen.
Against that backdrop, I found myself confronting something unexpected.
If I am going to criticize Khan for trying to shape public perception, intellectual honesty requires that I apply the same standard elsewhere. Consistency is not optional. It is the price of credibility.
That brings me to the video montage recently released by the accuser.
When I first watched it, I reacted instinctively.
I saw someone who appeared exhausted, frightened, isolated, and emotionally drained. Like many people, I felt sympathy. Indeed, I even acknowledged that reaction publicly. But after reflecting on it, I found myself asking a different question. Not whether the video was truthful; I have no basis to answer that. Not whether the emotions portrayed were genuine; I have no basis to answer that either. The question I found myself asking was much simpler: What is this video intended to accomplish?
That is not an accusation. It is a question that ought to be asked whenever carefully produced advocacy appears in an ongoing institutional process.
The video is, quite plainly, a montage. A carefully curated sequence of moments depicting fear, vulnerability, isolation, and anxiety. Every image may well reflect genuine experience. Nothing about calling it a montage suggests otherwise. But montages are never neutral. Their purpose is to persuade. Their strength lies in their ability to evoke emotion while guiding the viewer toward a particular understanding of events.
Lawyers do this every day. So do documentary filmmakers and political consultants.
Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of persuasion. That is not inherently objectionable. What gives me pause is something else. It is the timing; its release is difficult to ignore.
It appeared while the institutional process was still unfolding, at a moment when those responsible for deciding Khan’s future were themselves under intense public scrutiny. I have no way of knowing who conceived the video, who filmed it, who edited it, or who ultimately decided that this was the appropriate moment to release it. Nor do I know whether the accuser herself directed any of those decisions. But those unknowns do not prevent reasonable observers from drawing reasonable inferences.
The combination of carefully curated imagery, an emotionally powerful presentation, and strategic timing naturally suggests that the video was intended not merely to tell her story but also to influence the environment in which that story would be judged. Whether that inference is ultimately correct is almost beside the point. The problem is that the video’s production and release create that appearance. And appearances matter, particularly when an institution already struggling to preserve public confidence is asked to decide one of the most consequential matters in its history.
Some will view the montage as a deeply personal account from someone trying to explain the human cost of the controversy. Others may reasonably see it as advocacy intended, at least in part, to shape public understanding of unresolved events. Both interpretations are possible. I do not claim to know which is correct. Nor am I interested in knowing.
What concerns me is not motive so much as effect. Once public narratives become intertwined with ongoing institutional processes, there is always a risk that emotion will begin to compete with evidence. That observation applies equally to both sides.
The accused may seek to influence public opinion. So may the accuser. Neither possibility should surprise us. Careers, reputations, futures, and deeply personal interests are at stake.
Human beings naturally seek to persuade. The problem is not that people advocate for themselves. The problem arises when advocacy begins to overshadow the process.
Courts – and disciplinary bodies worthy of confidence – exist precisely to decide disputes on evidence, tested by procedures designed to separate persuasion from proof.
The court of public opinion functions differently.
It rewards timing, repetition, compelling narratives, and emotions, and sometimes even rewards certainty where certainty does not yet exist. That is precisely why institutional legitimacy depends on resisting those pressures.
Ironically, I suspect the entire affair illustrates something even larger than the conduct of either Khan or his accuser. It highlights the shortcomings of the ICC’s institutional mechanisms.
If allegations potentially amounting to criminal conduct had been promptly referred to the competent national authorities by the ICC (as I suggest should be the adopted process henceforth) while the ICC pursued its own internal disciplinary responsibilities, much of what followed might have been avoided.
Instead, an institutional vacuum emerged. Into that vacuum flowed selective disclosures, media speculation, competing narratives, strategic communications, public advocacy, and, ultimately, competing campaigns for public legitimacy.
Institutions create incentives. Sometimes they inadvertently create the wrong ones. None of this should be read as diminishing the seriousness of allegations of sexual misconduct. Quite the opposite. Those who come forward deserve to be heard, professional investigations, and fairness. So do those accused.
The legitimacy of any justice system depends on its ability to extend procedural fairness to both parties without requiring either to win or lose in the marketplace of public opinion.
I began with Keynes because changing one’s mind is not a sign of inconsistency. Sometimes it is evidence of intellectual honesty. I continue to give Khan the benefit of the doubt on allegations I cannot evaluate. I have, however, become critical of how he has chosen to defend himself publicly. Likewise, I continue to acknowledge the possibility that the accuser’s suffering is entirely genuine. I have, however, become uneasy with the growing role the public narrative appears to be playing in an unresolved institutional process.
My positions are not contradictory. They stem from the same principle. Justice cannot depend on who presents the better PR campaign outside of the decision-making system, whether it be the institutional process or the courtroom. A montage can illuminate reality. It can also manufacture an impression of reality. The two are not always the same. That is its power and its danger. That is why institutions charged with administering justice must be especially careful not to confuse compelling external narratives with tested evidence.
The danger, as I see it, begins when we stop asking whether we are seeing reality or merely the reality someone wants us to see.
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