'Just World News' with Helena Cobban

ICTY case management

I see from a piece by Marlise Simons in the NYT today that Theodor Meron, the President of the Internatinal Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, and the prosecutors there, have started trying to speed things by organizing a lot more plea bargains than previously.

This is in line with the more expedited case management at ICTY and its sister-court for rwanda, ICTR that the US has been urging for a while. Simons' piece notes that ICTY has finished trying 40 people already and has 27 others "preparing for trial". It makes some sense to me, as the trials at the ICTs are incredibly expensive and long-drawn-out.

I have a piece coming out in Boston Review soon about the ICTR, which goes into some of these same issues of cost and case management. (Also, of relevance to the situation inside Rwanda.) At ICTR, the "record" on number of cases completed is far worse-- around 12 to date, only. But at least at ICTR, the Prosecutors started out with a more well-thought-out strategy of focusing on the "big fish" and not letting the court's time and resources get distracted into going after small fry, which is how ICTY started out.

Also, at ICTR, they probably got their hands on a greater proportion of the real top people they were going after than they did at ICTY. There, most notably, Mladic and Karadzic are still running loose...

What does all this actually achieve, for the peoples of Rwanda and former Yugoslavia, though? That's what I'm trying to investigate-- well, with particular reference to ICTR. I do understand that at the level of "global" policy, these courts are establishing an impressive new body of case law on matter dealing with atrocities, etc., etc. (And providing a lot of well-paid jobs for a small coterie of international lawyers.)

But at the end of the day, law is supposed to serve people, not the other way round. Have the $1 billion or so that's gone into ICTY and more-than-$500 million that's gone into ICTR actually been well spent? Have these two projects contributed to strengthening national reconciliation in those societies and ending the previous cycles of violence?

I think "the jury's still out" on those questions. (Not that ICTY and ICTR even have juries, anyway.)

But amidst the general enthusiasm for war-crimes courts that most people in the human-rights movement have gotten swept up by in recent years, it's worth remembering that amnesties and a spirit of forgiveness have often actually, historically, played a central role in building a general climate of peacefulness and reconciliation, and thus bringing the commission of acts of atrocious violence to and end. That is--or should be--a goal of the human rights movement, too!