scholarly journals Prosecution in the Radovan Karadzic case – ICTY IT-95-5/18

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (5) ◽  
pp. 235-257
Author(s):  
Meldijana Arnaut Haseljić ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Effective Control ◽  
Civilian Population ◽  
The Right ◽  
Republika Srpska

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia has filed an Indictment (originally July 25, 1995, and an operational Indictment on October 19, 2009) against Radovan Karadzic, the former President of Republika Srpska and Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Republika Srpska. After many years of hiding in Serbia, Karadzic was arrested on July 21, 2008, and transferred to the ICTY on July 30 of that year. The trial began on 26 October 2009. Radovan Karadzic is charged for genocide (Counts 1 and 2); crimes against humanity: persecution (count 3), extermination (count 4), murder (count 5), deportation (count 7), inhumane acts - forcible transfer (count 8); and violations of the laws or customs of war: murder (count 6), terrorism (count 9), unlawful attacks on civilians (count 10), hostage-taking (count 11). Radovan Karadzic has been charged with individual criminal responsibility in accordance with Rule 7 (1) of the Statute of the International Tribunal through his participation in several joint criminal enterprises (JCEs). According to the Indictment, no later than October 1991 to November 30, 1995, Karadzic participated in a JCE aimed at the permanent removal of Bosniaks and Croats from certain areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina; from April 1992 to November 1995, he participated in the JCE to launch and conduct a campaign of sniping and shelling of the civilian population of Sarajevo, aimed at spreading terror among the civilian population; from July 1995 until 1 November 1995, he participated in the JCE of the elimination of Bosniaks in Srebrenica, by killing men and boys, as well as forcibly expelling women, children and the elderly from the area; and for participated in the JCE of taking members of the United Nations hostage during May and June 1995. Pursuant to Article 7 (3) of the Statute, the Indictment charges him with superior responsibility because he knew or had reason to know that forces under his effective control were being prepared to commit crimes or have already committed them, and has not taken measures to prevent the commission of crimes or to punish the perpetrators of those crimes. On June 11, 2012, Karadzic filed a motion for acquittal on all counts of the Indictment. Pursuant to Rule 98bis, on 28 June 2012, the Trial Chamber rendered a Decision dismissing the motion for acquittal on ten counts of the Indictment, but acquitted Count 1 of the Indictment relating to genocide committed in certain municipalities of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bratunac, Foca, Kljuc, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Vlasenica and Zvornik. This count of the Indictment alleges that Karadzic is responsible for the genocide as a superior, and that in agreement with others he committed, planned, instigated, ordered and/or aided and abetted the genocide. Following the Prosecution's appeal against the decision to exclude Count 1 from the Indictment, on 11 July 2013 the Appeals Chamber quashed the Trial Chamber's decision and returned Count 1 of the Indictment charging Karadzic with genocide in the said municipalities, and the proceedings continued before the Trial Chamber. The Trial Chamber's verdict against Radovan Karadzic was handed down on March 24, 2016, sentencing him to 40 years in prison for genocide, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws or customs of war. In 6,073 paragraphs is explained the role of the RS Army, as well as police structures, territorial defense, and regional and municipal authorities and other participants in joint criminal enterprises. The forms and methods of committing crimes committed in the municipalities of Bijeljina, Bratunac, Brčko, Foča, Rogatica, Sokolac, Višegrad, Vlasenica and Zvornik in eastern Bosnia are described; Banja Luka, Bosanski Novi, Ključ, Prijedor and Sanski Most in the Autonomous Region of Krajina (“ARK”); Hadžići, Ilidža, Novi Grad, Novo Sarajevo, Pale and Vogošća in the area of Sarajevo, and precise ways of carrying out a comprehensive joint criminal enterprise, but also joint criminal enterprises related to Srebrenica (genocide), Sarajevo (terrorizing citizens with sniper fire and shelling), and hostage-taking (UNPROFOR international peacekeepers). The first-instance verdict found Karadzic guilty of 10 of the 11 counts in the indictment. Both the Prosecution and the Defense for the Accused appealed the Trial Chamber's judgment, and the second-instance proceedings continued. On March 20, 2019, the Appeals Chamber issued a final verdict sentencing Radovan Karadžić to life imprisonment. The verdict found him guilty of persecution from a territory that Bosnian Serbs considered to be claiming the right, sniping and shelling of Sarajevo, taking UNPROFOR members hostage and genocide in Srebrenica. Both Trial and Appeals Chambers acquitted Karadzic of genocide committed in seven Bosnian municipalities (Bratunac, Foca, Kljuc, Prijedor, Sanski Most, Vlasenica and Zvornik) committed in 1992.

List of Current Proceedings

1999 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 437-449
Author(s):  
Thomas Henquet
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Arrest Warrant ◽  
Geneva Conventions ◽  
Rules Of Procedure ◽  
Republika Srpska ◽  
Individual Criminal Responsibility

The accused is charged with both individual criminal responsibility and superior criminal responsibility for crimes against humanity, grave breaches of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, and violations of the laws or customs of war. All crimes were allegedly committed at the Sušica camp in the municipality of Vlasenica, Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1992. Given the inability of Bosnia and Herzegovina to execute the arrest warrant and the non-co-operation by the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and Republika Srpska, an international arrest warrant was issued to all states, pursuant to Rule 61 of the Rules of Procedure and Evidence. The accused remains at large.

Individual Criminal Responsibility in International Human Rights Law: The Contribution of the International Criminal Court

1970 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
Author(s):  
Justin Mohammed
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Added Value ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
The Road ◽  
Individual Criminal Responsibility

The road to developing an international institutional capacity to prosecute crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide has been a long one, and has in many ways concluded with the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC). By looking at the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), as well as the ICC, this paper traces the evolution of the concept of individual criminal responsibility to its present incarnation. It argues that while the ICC presents its own unique ‘added value’ to the prosecution of international criminals, its application of justice continues to be biased by the influence of powerful states.

The Broken Path to Reconciliation in Bosnia and Herzegovina

2020 ◽  
pp. 571-582
Author(s):  
Rosa Aloisi
Keyword(s):  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
International Justice ◽  
Local Authorities ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Divided Society ◽  
Post War ◽  
The Right ◽  
Vivid Description

The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has delivered judgments adjudicating some of the most heinous crimes committed in the Balkans. As the Tribunal’s work comes to an end, judges leave behind a ‘memorial of words’ providing a vivid description of events and sites of atrocities. However, today local authorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) use the same places where crimes were committed as a political tool of denial and battleground of ethnic divisions. This chapter assesses the tensions between the truth recounted by the ICTY and the construction of the local collective memory through an analysis of how the sites of atrocities are being used. This chapter argues that, while international justice offers some resolution to a post-war divided society, a full reconciliation is only possible when the communities acknowledge the occurrence of atrocities and the right of victims to visit these places to mourn and remember.

Briefly Noted

2019 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 664-667
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
Life Sentence

On March 20, 2019, the Appeals Chamber of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals set aside Radovan Karadžić's prior sentence of forty years and imposed a life sentence. Karadžić was convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws or customs of war in March 2016 by a Trial Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and sentenced to forty years in prison. His crimes relate to war crimes he committed during the 1990s conflicts in the Balkans, in particular the 1995 Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Bosnian Serbs and the three-year long siege of Sarajevo. The Appeals Chamber reversed part of Karadžić's convictions related to the Overarching JCE and dismissed the rest of his appeal, while also dismissing most of the Prosecution's appeal, aside from the sentence. The Appeals Chamber judges found that the Trial Chamber “committed a discernible error and abused its discretion in imposing a sentence of only 40 years of imprisonment,” and consequently imposed a life sentence.

Crimes against Humanity

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth van Schaack
Keyword(s):  
International Law ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
International Crime ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Civilian Population

Crimes against humanity have both a colloquial and a legal existence. In daily parlance, the term is employed to condemn any number of atrocities that violate international human rights. As a legal construct, crimes against humanity encompass a constellation of acts made criminal under international law when they are committed within the context of a widespread and systematic attack against a civilian population. In the domain of international criminal law, crimes against humanity are an increasingly useful component of any international prosecutor’s toolbox, because they can be charged in connection with acts of violence that do not implicate other international criminal prohibitions, such as the prohibitions against war crimes (which require a nexus to an armed conflict) and genocide (which protects only certain human groups and requires proof of a specific intent to destroy such a group). Although the concept of crimes against humanity has deep roots, crimes against humanity were first adjudicated—albeit with some controversy—in the criminal proceedings following the World War II period. The central challenge to defining crimes against humanity under international criminal law since then has been to come up with a formulation of the offense that reconciles the principle of sovereignty—which envisions an exclusive territorial domain in which states are free from outside scrutiny—with the idea that international law can, and indeed should, regulate certain acts committed entirely within the borders of a single state. Because many enumerated crimes against humanity are also crimes under domestic law (e.g., murder, assault, and rape), it was necessary to define crimes against humanity in a way that did not elevate every domestic crime to the status of an international crime, subject to international jurisdiction. Over the years, legal drafters have experimented with various elements in an effort to arrive at a workable penal definition. The definitional confusion plaguing the crime over its life span generated a considerable amount of legal scholarship. It was not until the UN Security Council promulgated the statutes of the two ad hoc international criminal tribunals—the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda—that a modern definition of the crime emerged. These definitions were further refined by the case law of the two tribunals and their progeny, such as the Special Court for Sierra Leone. All these doctrinal developments were codified, with some additional modifications, in a consensus definition in Article 7 of the Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). It is now clear that the offense constitutes three essential elements: (1) the existence of a widespread or systematic attack against a civilian population and (2) the intentional commission of an enumerated act (such as an act of murder or torture) (3) by an individual with knowledge that his or her act would contribute to the larger attack. A renewed effort is now afoot to promulgate a multilateral treaty devoted to crimes against humanity based on the ICC definition and these central elements. Through this dynamic process of codification and interpretation, many—but not all—definitional issues left open in the postwar period have finally been resolved. Although their origins were somewhat shaky, crimes against humanity now have a firm place in the canon of international criminal law.

The Right of the Accused to Self-Representation Before International Criminal Tribunals: Further Developments

2005 ◽  
Vol 99 (3) ◽  
pp. 663-668
Author(s):  
Nina H. B. Jørgensen
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal ◽  
Rapid Development ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
International Criminal Tribunals ◽  
The Law ◽  
Developing Area ◽  
The Right

In its decision on assigned counsel's motion for withdrawal in the Milosevic case, the trial chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) observed “that assignment of counsel against the wishes of the accused is a developing area of the law both in national and international jurisdictions.” This area of law witnessed rapid development by international criminal tribunals in the latter half of 2004.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia: The Prosecutor v. Gotovina et al.

2013 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 72-162 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Elderfield
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity

On November 16, 2012, the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) reversed by majority the findings of a unanimous Trial Chamber in Prosecutor v. Gotovina et al. (Gotovina). In so doing, it acquitted two Croatian generals, Ante Gotovina and Mladen Markač, on all counts of the indictment, including persecution and deportation as crimes against humanity, and four counts of violations of the laws or customs of war.

Perpetrators on Trial

2019 ◽  
pp. 273-295
Author(s):  
Mirza Buljubašić ◽  
Barbora Holá
Keyword(s):  
Bosnia And Herzegovina ◽  
Transitional Justice ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
Original Data ◽  
Former Yugoslavia ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Empirical Basis ◽  
International Crimes ◽  
Atrocity Crimes

Existing research on atrocity crimes perpetrators is predominantly theoretical and generic. Exploration of characteristics of individuals tried for their involvement in war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide might provide an empirical basis for a better understanding of the nature of international crimes and of criminal trials after atrocities. This chapter analyses defendant-related and crime-related characteristics of perpetrators tried by all courts in Bosnia and Herzegovina and by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) following the armed conflict in the 1990s at the territory of former Yugoslavia. Based on original data, collected as of January 2016, it briefly examines perpetrators convicted of international crimes by domestic and international courts, and their socio-demographic and crime-related characteristics. In addition to enriching debates on perpetrators of international crimes, the results can serve as a basis for further discussions on transitional justice after atrocities in Bosnia, its scope, and merits.

scholarly journals Crimes Against Humanity: Directing Attacks Against A Civilian Population

2008 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 118-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chile Eboe-Osuji
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Law ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
International Criminal Law ◽  
Reasonable Doubt ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Civilian Population ◽  
Primary Object ◽  
Classic Theory ◽  
A Charge

AbstractIn international criminal law, to sustain a charge of crimes against humanity, the Prosecution must prove, among other elements, that the perpetrator was involved in an attack directed against a civilian population. In Prosecutor v Fofana and Kondewa, the Special Court for Sierra Leone found that the Prosecution failed to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the civilian population was the 'primary object' of the attack and acquitted the accused on the counts of murder and other inhumane acts as crimes against humanity. The Appeals Chamber accepted this view. However, it reversed Trial Chamber I on the ground that the Prosecution evidence did establish that the civilian population had been the primary, as opposed to incidental, target of the attack. The author suggests that this is an error resulting from the undue jurisprudential pre-occupation with the meaning of 'primary' in relation to the notion of attack against a civilian population. Instead, the inquiry should focus on whether the civilian population was 'intentionally' targeted in the attack, notwithstanding that it may not have been the primary object of the attack. He submits that this approach would be consistent with the classic theory of mens rea in criminal law.

Darfur and the ‘Odious Scourge’: The Commission of Inquiry's Findings on Genocide

2005 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 871-885 ◽  
Author(s):  
WILLIAM A. SCHABAS
Keyword(s):  
International Criminal ◽  
International Criminal Tribunal ◽  
War Crimes ◽  
Trial Chamber ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
Crimes Against Humanity ◽  
Un Security Council ◽  
Genocidal Intent ◽  
Set Up

The report of the International Commission of Inquiry on Darfur, set up pursuant to a UN Security Council resolution, is an important contribution to the evolving law of genocide. The Commission concluded that genocide had not been committed, but that the case should be referred to the International Criminal Court for prosecution as crimes against humanity and war crimes. The Commission did not find significant evidence of genocidal intent. It looked essentially for a plan or policy of the Sudanese state and, in its absence, concluded that genocide was not being committed. The Commission endorsed the ‘stable and permanent groups’ approach taken by one trial chamber of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). On this point, it exaggerated the acceptance of this interpretation, which has been ignored by other trial chambers of the international tribunals. However, the Commission found that the better approach to determination of the groups covered by the Convention is subjective, and that the targeted tribes in Darfur meet this criterion.

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