The first of its kind, this book treats language justice in the realm of the international criminal law, focusing specifically on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Defining linguistic justice to mean whether the parties to the proceedings have been addressed by the ICTY in their own language, this study explores the conditions for the delivery of linguistic justice in a context where language plays a key role in the conflict. After presenting a very brief history of language quarrels in the former Yugoslavia and pointing to a series of examples where the language, and underlying ethnic and national identities, have been used as a tool for a conflict, the book reviews ICTY language laws, language-related case law, and procedural linguistic equality of arms between the ICTY Prosecution and Defense to set the stage for language-related work that had to be carried out by the ICTY’s language services providers. After reviewing the history, the recruitment, professional criteria and standards, and training of all ICTY language professionals, this book explores whether linguistic justice has been served by showing overall outputs in translation and interpretation, overall ethnicity- and nationality-based language service delivery, and translation of the permanent court record. It shows that there is much more to provision of language services at international criminal tribunals adjudicating on ethnically motivated war crimes than traditionally thought, and questions whether any of it make any sense as things stand.

This volume adds to prior literature about the ICTY by providing a comprehensive view of how people from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, and Serbia view and evaluate the ICTY.

Can we achieve justice during war? Should law substitute for realpolitik? Can an international court act against the global community that created it? Justice in a Time of War is a translation from the French of the first complete, behind-the-scenes story of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, from its proposal by Balkan journalist Mirko Klarin through recent developments in the first trial of its ultimate quarry, Slobodan Miloševic. It is also a meditation on the conflicting intersection of law and politics in achieving justice and peace. Le Monde’s review (November 3, 2000) of the original edition recommended Hazan’s book as a nuanced account of the Tribunal that should be a must-read for the new president of Yugoslavia. “The story Pierre Hazan tells is that of an institution which, over the course of the years, has managed to escape in large measure from the initial hidden motives and manipulations of those who created it (not only the Americans).” With insider interviews filling out every scene, author Pierre Hazan tells a chaotic story of war while the Western powers cobbled together a tribunal in order to avoid actual intervention, hoping to threaten international criminals with indictment and thereby to force an untenable peace. The international lawyers and judges for this rump world court started with nothing—no office space, no assistants, no computers, not even a budget—but they ultimately established the tribunal as an unavoidable actor in the Balkans. This development was also a reflection of the evolving political situation: the West had created the Tribunal in 1993 as an alibi in order to avoid military intervention, but in 1999, the Tribunal suddenly became useful to NATO countries as a means by which to criminalize Miloševic’s regime and to justify military intervention in Kosovo and in Serbia. Ultimately, this hastened the end of Miloševic’s rule and led the way to history’s first war crimes trial of a former president by an international tribunal. Ironically, this triumph for international law was not really intended by the Western leaders who created the court. They sought to placate, not shape, public opinion. But the determination of a handful of people working at the Tribunal transformed it into an active agent for change, paving the road for the International Criminal Court and greatly advancing international criminal law. Yet the Tribunal’s existence poses as many questions as it answers. How independent can a U.N. Tribunal be from the political powers that created it and sustain it politically and financially ? Hazan remains cautious though optimistic for the future of international justice. His history remains a cautionary tale to the reader: realizing ideals in a world enamored of realpolitik is a difficult and often haphazard activity.

This edited volume provides a multidisciplinary perspective on the contribution of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to law, memory, and justice. It explores some of the accomplishments, challenges and critiques of the ICTY, as well as some of its less visible legacies.

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established in 1993 and is due to complete its trials by 2011. Easily the most credible and prodigious of the international tribunals established in this period, the ICTY is by far the most important source of case law on international criminal law. This is reflected in the citations it receives by other courts and by learned commentators. Long after its dissolution, the ICTY will most likely serve as an important frame of reference for the International Criminal Court and other courts dealing with international crimes, including national courts. The publication of this book coincides with the year of cessation of trial activity at the ICTY. Its purpose is to mark this significant milestone in international law with a series of in-depth, critical reflections on the institution's legacy by eminent scholars and practitioners. In the course of seventeen chapters, the contributing authors analyse the main features of the ICTY's work in an unprecedented examination of the institution's legitimacy, core principles, methodologies, unstated assumptions, political circumstances, and impact-and indeed, its legacy.

An internationally-renowned scholar in the fields of international and transitional justice, Diane Orentlicher provides an unparalleled account of an international tribunal's impact in societies that have the greatest stake in its work. In Some Kind of Justice: The ICTY's Impact in Bosnia and Serbia, Orentlicher explores the evolving domestic impact of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which operated longer than any other international war crimes court. Drawing on hundreds of research interviews and a rich body of inter-disciplinary scholarship, Orentlicher provides a path-breaking account of how the Tribunal influenced domestic political developments, victims' experience of justice, acknowledgement of wartime atrocities, and domestic war crimes prosecutions, as well as the dynamic factors behind its evolving influence in each of these spheres. Highlighting the perspectives of Bosnians and Serbians, Some Kind of Justice offers important and practical lessons about how international criminal courts can improve the delivery of justice.

On 25 May 1993 the United Nations Security Council took the extraordinary and unprecedented step of deciding to establish the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) as a mechanism for the restoration and maintenance of international peace and security. This was an extremely significant innovation in the use of mandatory enforcement powers by the Security Council, and the manifestation of an explicit link between peace and justice - politics and law.The establishment of ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda was followed by the adoption of the Rome Statute of the ICC in July 1998, the arrest of General Augusto Pinochet in London in October 1998, and the establishment of ad hoc tribunals in Cambodia, Sierra Leone, and East Timor, all of which pointed to an emerging norm of international criminal justice. The key to understanding this is the relationship between the political mandate and the judicial function. The Tribunalwas established as a tool of politics, but it was a judicial, not a political tool.This book provides a systematic examination of the Tribunal, what it is, why it was established, how it functions, and where its significance lies. The central question is whether an international judicial institution, such as the Tribunal, can operate in a highly politicized context and fulfill an explicit political purpose, without the judicial process becoming politicized. Separate chapters chart the origins of the court, the process of establishment, jurisdiction, procedure, stateco-operation, including obtaining custody of accused, and the role and function of the Chief Prosecutor. This last element is the key to the Tribunal's success in maintaining a delicate balancing act so that its external political function does not impinge on its impartial judicial status, and insteadenhances its effectiveness. The book concludes with an assessment of the conduct of the Milosevic case to date.