Insights

— Published in Justice Info

The Question That Was Never Asked

On the duty of care owed to the court staff who handle the evidence in atrocity-crimes trials. 22 September 2026.

This series led to the piece above.

Writing from 25 Years In, a series on leadership, institutions, and what the work costs the people who carry it.

25 Years In | No. 1, Why I Am Writing This

I have spent twenty-five years inside some of the most complex institutional environments on the planet. Tribunals. Post-conflict systems. Governance reform across regions where the stakes were never abstract: people's lives, institutions, the …

25 Years In | No. 2, What This Work Actually Is

I was at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam.

My bag had just been stolen. Passport. Cards. Everything. I was supposed to be on a flight home for two weeks of leave. Instead, I was making a list of everything to cancel, replace, and rebook.

I was …

25 Years In | No. 3, Running on Empty

I was based in Bangkok.

Seven countries. Two years of flying between Bangkok, Phnom Penh, Manila, Jakarta, Vientiane, and occasionally Hanoi and Yangon. Repeat. A project that demanded everything and then asked for more.

By year two, I was completely …

25 Years In | No. 4, They Weren't Expecting Me

A senior judicial official looked up and said, with undisguised surprise: "Oh. You're Black."

I said: "Yes. Every day. All day."

He explained. When he saw my CV, my name, Krystal Thompson, he expected a white woman. In his experience, my organization had …

25 Years In | No. 5, Identity Placement Intelligence® - What the Room Decides Before You Speak

They could not bring themselves to say the word. Chief. Not to me.

I had just been promoted to lead my section at an international court in West Africa. Word reached me through the grapevine: some of the men could not see themselves calling a woman …

25 Years In | No. 6, The Backlog

A long phone call with an old friend in Belize this week brought it all back. 49,398.

That was the criminal case backlog in Belize in February 2022. Some cases dated back to 1995. More than 14,000 had been adjourned over five times. One matter had been …

25 Years In | No. 7, Krystal Thompson v Gecko

People think living and working around the world is glamorous. Some of it is. And then there are the geckos.

You would think by now I could accept the less charming parts, the roaches as big as a small child, the netting around the bed, all of it. No. I …

25 Years In | No. 8: The Unspoken Cost of Justice

For years at the tribunal in The Hague, my days were spent inside genocide.

Testimony about Srebrenica. Exhibits nobody should have to look at twice. We turned around transcripts in 24 hours because justice could not wait.

And then at six o’clock I jumped …

25 Years In | No. 9, The Authenticity Performance

Somewhere in the last few years, being real became a product.

Scroll any professional feed. Everyone is unfiltered now. Everyone is soul-led, showing up as their whole self, honoring their truth. And somehow it all looks exactly the same. Same story …