Belated punishment ends up to be nothing more than a ‘mere show#x2019;, Beccaria argues in his Dei Delitti e Delle Pene (1764). The motto remains current with regard to trials of aged defendants for past international atrocities. In such cases, the question arises if the preconditions of criminal liability (Duff, 2001) for aged defendants are properly satisfied. Are aged defendants fully answerable for their atrocities? Based on the idea that a criminal trial is really -except for its nature as a quest of truth and justice- a communicative event between parts, the author argues that there is an important ‘communicative asymmetry’ to be observed in criminal trials against aged defendants for international atrocities, illustrates its dimensions and features and suggests some ways of dealing with it, in order that the trial preserves its pure function as an instance of criminal justice.

迟来的惩罚最终只不过是一场“表演#x2019”；贝卡利亚在他的 Dei Delitti e Delle Pene (1764) 中辩称。关于对过去国际暴行的老年被告进行审判的座右铭仍然是最新的。在这种情况下，问题是是否适当满足了老年被告的刑事责任 (Duff, 2001) 的先决条件。老年被告是否应对他们的暴行负全部责任？基于刑事审判实际上是——除了其追求真理和正义的性质之外——是部分之间的交流事件的观点，作者认为，在针对老年被告的刑事审判中需要观察到一个重要的“交流不对称”对于国际暴行，说明其维度和特征，并提出一些处理方法，