“Where politics fail only art can help,” wrote DIE ZEIT about Milo Rau's first major Congo Tribunal in 2015 in the eastern Congolese city of Bukavu. A panel of Congolese and European lawyers had set itself the goal of finally ending the impunity of the large transnational mining corporations. Further tribunals were held in Berlin, Zurich and the “world capital of cobalt” Kolwezi, and a cinema and television film were made. The opera Justice is based on this decades-long work, in particular the so-called Glencore Tribunal, which Rau and his team held in Kolwezi's parliament in December 2021.

“Is it the most ambitious political theater ever staged?” asked THE GUARDIAN, Radio France Internationale saw the “craziest theatre project of our time”. Justice is the latest chapter in this attempt at transnational solidarity, a “completely new step in opera history” (Parra). Or as singer Serge Kakudji, born in Kolwezi, puts it: “An opera about the Congo of today, developed with those affected and performed at one of the largest opera houses in the world, next to Glencore's headquarters: that is an artistic revolution.”