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  Wikipedia: International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Wikipedia: International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

The neutrality of this article is disputed.

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.

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 accomodation 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 Gabrielle Kirk-McDonald (USA; 1994-1999) 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 Ramon 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:

  • 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.
  • The Court 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. However, this criticism overlooks the fact that the UNGA does not possess the authority under the United Nations Charter to establish such a body. Moreover, the proponents of the ICTY point out that the "victors' tribunal" accusation did not emerge until the Kosovo War 1999, by which time the Tribunal had already been in existence for six years.
  • 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. Defenders 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.

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 was not entirely justified, since Justice Arbour's successor as Prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, did in fact order an investigation to ascertain whether allegations amde against the political and military leaders of NATO were substantial enouhg to warrant indictments.

In December, 2003, Wesley Clark testified behind closed doors during Slobodan Milosevic'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 May cuts Milosevic off and some back and forth follows between the two, in which Judge May reminds Milosevic that since Milosevic is cross-examining General Clark, Milosevic 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 Milosevic to raise that issue during cross-examination. At the end of the exchange, Milosevic 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. Milosevic 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


   

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Modified by Geona