Queering temporalities of international criminal justice: Srebrenica remembrance and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
Caitlin Biddolph
Author(s):  
Carsten Stahn

The chapter sets the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) legacies into a broader context of international criminal justice. It presents different approaches towards the many legacies of the ICTY. The chapter engages with the several phases that the Tribunal has passed, discussing their positive and negative points. It then examines the normative legacy of the ICTY, arguing that, although some gaps exist, the overall record of the ICTY is marked with several normative innovations. The chapter then visits the procedural legacy of the ICTY, in the sense of how the Tribunal made justice heard and seen. Lastly, the chapter discusses the institutional culture of the ICTY and its legacy to other international criminal tribunals. With this analysis, the chapter claims that the ICTY legacies are living beings, which will continue to be transformed throughout the history of international criminal justice.


Significance The verdict runs counter to 20 years of jurisprudence and history at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). It undermines the idea of using international criminal justice to assist in post-conflict reconstruction and reconciliation. It has caused disbelief, disappointment and anger in Croatia and Bosnia, especially among victims, and generated political instability in Serbia. Impacts The controversial judgment will further discredit the ICTY and the very idea of international criminal justice in the eyes of critics. It followed Karadzic's 40-year prison sentence, which has dismayed victims and observers expecting a harsher sentence. Despite working towards closure in 2017, the ICTY is very likely to grant an appeal. However, Seselj himself is unlikely to reappear in The Hague voluntarily.


2018 ◽  
Vol 28 (4) ◽  
pp. 317-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
Olivera Simić

After more than 20 years in operation, the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has closed down at the end of 2017. Biljana Plavšić made history by becoming the only woman, of 161 individuals, indicted by the ICTY. She was also the highest ranking official and the first Serb leader to plead guilty to charges raised against her before the ICTY. After entering into a plea agreement and serving two thirds of her 11-year sentence in Sweden, she returned to Belgrade in 2009 where she has been living ever since. In this article, I draw on interviews I undertook with Plavšić in the course of 2017. In the first part of the article, I briefly introduce Plavšić and situate the study within the field of international criminal justice and transitional justice. I then proceed to discuss four themes that Plavšić most frequently returned to during our conversations. These themes offer an original perspective into Plavšić’s experience of being tried and sentenced by the international tribunal and her subsequent release and return home. This article aims to fill a gap in the literature by analyzing the reflections on the ICTY from its only woman defendant.


2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 567-591 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Meernik

Despite the fact that international courts have proven popular in the last 20 years, systematic and empirical inquiry to determine whether they are beginning to realize their objectives is a fairly recent phenomenon. Support among the publics in the affected countries is critical to their success for, as deGuzman writes, ‘… the globalization of communications increasingly means that an institution’s legitimacy depends on the opinions of ordinary citizens around the world’. I develop a theory of public opinion regarding international criminal justice and test it on support for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), among peoples of the former Yugoslavia. I contend that support for the ICTY is filtered through individuals’ perceptions of the past, present, and future. As one’s beliefs about whether conditions are good or improving grow more positive, such positive perceptions are generalized to extend to international institutions that play a major role in shaping those conditions. In addition, I argue that support for the ICTY is strongly influenced by an individual’s views of the legitimacy and morality of the law. Ethnicity is also important in differentiating levels of support across the peoples of the former Yugoslavia.


AJIL Unbound ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 110 ◽  
pp. 205-208
Author(s):  
Eyal Benvenisti ◽  
Sarah M.H. Nouwen

As a response to the Symposium on the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda published by the American Journal of International Law on the occasion of the tribunals’ closure, this AJIL Unbound Symposium intends to broaden the debate on the “legacies” of those courts. The AJIL Symposium contains articles on the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR); the ad hoc tribunals’ jurisprudential contributions; and their extra-legal impacts and legacies. The concept of “legacy” is itself contested and the appropriateness of the courts’ own efforts to consolidate it may be questioned, especially as they have barely ended (or are about to end) their work. Nevertheless, their over two decades of existence does provide an occasion to assess all they have done and not done, and have affected, intentionally and unintentionally. Against that background, we have invited a group of scholars to respond to the AJIL Symposium and to reflect upon the work of the tribunals with a view to enriching the debate with more voices, from different regions, from different interest groups, and from different disciplines.


2014 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-41 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stathis N. Palassis

The international crimes committed in the territory of the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s have been the subject of both State responsibility claims and prosecutions establishing individual criminal responsibility. On 26 February 2007 the International Court of Justice handed down its judgment in the Genocide case while it is expected that in 2014 the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia will conclude all appeals from prosecutions. While these initiatives contribute to the acknowledgement of the commission of international crimes they have not provided the victims with any financial reparations. Instead victims have had to make compensation claims under domestic law. The article examines how, in addition to the international initiatives at The Hague, a regionally focused victim oriented reparations approach can assist in attaining improved international criminal justice for international crimes committed during the Yugoslav wars. A victim oriented reparations approach would enhance victims’ rights through the provision of financial reparations, reflect improved international criminal justice and assist in the attainment long-term stability in the war-torn States of the former Yugoslavia.


Author(s):  
Olexandr Bazov

In the current conditions of the active development of the international criminal justice system from the Nuremberg and TokyoWar Crimes Tribunals, and after – the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, international criminaljudicial authorities of the so-called «new wave» or «third generation» are in the field of view of the science of international law, thestudy of the legal and institutional foundations of which represents significant scientific and practical interest. The legal and institutional foundations of the activities of a Special Court in Kosovo (the name also used to denote the KosovoSpecialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office) in the science of international law, in our opinion, has not sufficiently studied.We believe that this is due both to the fact that this Court, as new type of international criminal justice, was created recently, aswell as to the insignificant and contradictory practice of its judicial activity.Considering the foregoing, the aim of the article is to study the legal and institutional foundations and activities of a Special Courtto investigate war and other international crimes that were committed on the territory of Kosovo and which occupies a special place inthe international criminal justice system, given the specific features of its creation and activities, the formations of its international andnational components.The scientific novelty of the research results is that a comprehensive study of the legal and institutional foundations of the creationand activities of the Court, in Ukraine is being done for the first time.As the same time, during the scientific study, it was taken into account that this Court was created with the active participationof the United Nations, the Council of Europe, the European Union and also individual countries, as well as Kosovo in ordered to pro -secute for the commission of international crimes during the armed conflict in the territory of the former Yugoslavia, the «winners» –the former leaders of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UÇK), who were never prosecuted for their commissions of international crimesduring the activities of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY).


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document