International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Stop! The neutrality of this article is . See the article's talk page for more information.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia is a body of the United Nations established to prosecute war crimes in the former Yugoslavia. The tribunal functions as an ad-hoc independent court and is located in The Hague.

It was established by Resolution 827 of the UN Security Council, which was passed on 25 May 1993. It has jurisdiction over certain types of crime committed on the territory of the former Yugoslavia since 1991: grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, violations of the laws or customs of war, genocide and crime against humanity. It can try only individuals, not organizations, governments, etc. The maximum sentence it can impose is life imprisonment. Various countries have signed agreements with the UN to carry out custodial sentences.

Contents

Organization

The Tribunal employs some 1,200 staff. Its main organisational components are Chambers, Registry and the Office of The Prosecutor (OTP).

Chambers encompasses the judges, their aides and such elements as the Victims and Witness Unit, which is responsible for transport and accommodation of those who appear to testify. The Tribunal operates three Trial Chambers and one Appeals Chamber (which also functions as the Appeals Chamber for the ICTR); the Presiding Judge of the Appeals Chamber is also the President of the Tribunal as a whole. Currently, this is Theodor Meron (USA; since 2002). His predecessors were Antonio Cassese (Italy; 1993-1997), Gabrielle Kirk-McDonald (USA; 1997-1999) and Claude Jorda (France; 1999-2002).

Registry is responsible for handling the administration of the Tribunal; activities include keeping court records, translating court documents, operating the Public Information Section, and such general duties as payroll administration, personnel management and procurement. It is headed by the Registrar, currently Hans Holthuis (Netherlands; since 2000). His predecessor was Dorothée de Sampayo Garrido-Nijgh (Netherlands; 1995-2000).

The Office of the Prosecutor is responsible for investigating crimes, gathering evidence and prosecuting indictees. It is headed by the Prosecutor, who also serves as the Prosecutor of the ICTR. The current Prosecutor is Carla del Ponte (Switzerland; since 1999). Previous Prosecutors have been Ramón Escovar-Salom (Venezuela; 1993-1994), Richard Goldstone (South Africa; 1994-1996), and Louise Arbour (Canada; 1996-1999).

Criticisms of the Court

Some of the criticisms levelled against the court include:

  • It was established by the UN Security Council instead of the UN General Assembly, which makes it seem like a court created by the Great Powers in order to try citizens of smaller nations.
  • It was established on the basis of the Chapter VII of the UN Charter; relevant portion of the charter reads "the Security Council can take measures to maintain or restore international peace and security"; it is disputed whether a tribunal could be considered a measure to maintain or restore international peace and security, especially given UN practices.
  • An apparently disproportionately large number of indictees are Serbs (to the extent that a sizeable portion of the Bosnian Serb and Serbian political and military leaderships have been indicted), whereas there have been very few indictments resulting from crimes committed against Serbs (many Croat indictees were charged with crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims). Defenders of the Tribunal respond that Serb control of the established command structure (and most of the weaponry) of the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) from the start of the various wars facilitated the commission of crimes on a wider and more organised scale; furthermore, the Serb command structure facilitated the identification of those with command responsibility for war crimes.
  • Many of the indictees are still not apprehended, which reflects badly on its image. Defenders point out that the Tribunal has no powers of arrest, and is reliant on other agencies (notably national governments, SFOR and KFOR) to apprehend and extradite indictees.
  • The Tribunal's power to issue secret indictments creates uncertainty among people who regard themselves as possible indictees, which places an unreasonable strain on their ability to proceed with their everyday lives, both in the short and long term.
  • The Tribunal in effect makes no distinction between the Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages, issuing documents in what it terms "B/C/S" ("Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian") with no regard to differences between the three; see Serbo-Croatian language. Supporters of this approach respond that since all three forms are mutually intelligible to a high degree (and indeed were officially considered to be single language before the breakup of the former Yugoslavia), this is equivalent to criticising the United Nations for not issuing documents separately in British, American and Canadian English. However, the criticism further points out that despite the facts that Serbian is recognised as a part of B/C/S, that it is the variant with most speakers, and that most indictees are Serbs, the tribunal uses exclusively translators who speak Bosnian and Croatian variants. Some of the indictees have filed complaints about not being able to fully understand the translations.

NATO involvement

Further, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said the following about the court:

NATO countries are those that have provided the finance to set up the Tribunal, we are amongst the majority financiers, and of course to build a second chamber so that prosecutions can be speeded up so let me assure that we and the Tribunal are all one on this, we want to see war criminals brought to justice and I am certain that when Justice Arbour goes to Kosovo and looks at the facts she will be indicting people of Yugoslav nationality and I don't anticipate any others at this stage.

Mr. Shea's certainty appears to have been justified, since complaints over NATO war crimes were dismissed by the tribunal who claimed they had no jurisidiction over NATO.

In December 2003, Wesley Clark testified behind closed doors during Slobodan Milošević's trial. In the 1990s, Clark had spoken with Milosevic for more than 100 hours in his role as the head of the U.S. military team during the Dayton Agreement negotiations and as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.

Critics of the court took Clark's testimony as a prime example of the court's flaws. During Clark's cross-examination by Milosevic the following exchange is found:

MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] General Clark, is it true that in an interview that you gave for The New Yorker on the 17th of November, you said that the war that you waged was technically illegal?
[Judge Richard May, presiding, cuts Milošević off and some back and forth follows between the two, in which Judge May reminds Milošević that since Milošević is cross-examining General Clark, he can only address matters regarding which the witness was asked to testify during the examination in chief by the prosecutions counsel. Since the legality of the NATO military action was not discussed during examination in chief, the rules of procedure do not permit Milošević to raise that issue during cross-examination. At the end of the exchange, Milošević asks:]
MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] So I cannot ask him anything at all about the war waged by NATO against Yugoslavia. Is that what you're saying?
JUDGE MAY: Yes.
MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. May, that really is an example showing that this is truly nothing more than a farce.
[Arguably, Judge May expressed himself badly. Milošević would have been allowed to ask General Clark about the legality of the NATO military action if he had himself called General Clark as a witness and examined him in chief on another occasion.]

Indictees

Some of the notable indictees include but are not limited to:

See also

External links




de:UN-Kriegsverbrechertribunal fr:Tribunal pénal international pour l'ex-Yougoslavie ja:旧ユーゴスラヴィア国際戦犯法廷

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from Wikipedia article. Browse Wikipedia for more information.