Articles |
Evaluating the ICTY and its Completion Strategy
Efforts to Achieve Accountability for War Crimes and their Tribunals
1 Legal Adviser, British Embassy, The Hague. The views expressed here are personal to the author.
The attitude of the international community to war crimes tribunals is currently characterized by a degree of ambivalence. Whilst the principle of accountability for international crimes is increasingly ingrained in attitudes to conflict resolution, the dire state of funding for war crimes tribunals demonstrates frustration with the efficiency of such tribunals in practice. This ambivalence is epitomized by current attitudes towards the ICTY and, in particular, its Completion Strategy. The purpose of this paper is, first, to describe the development of the ICTY Completion Strategy. Second, the component parts of the ICTY Completion Strategy are described. Third, the ICTY Completion Strategy is evaluated. Finally, a number of tentative lessons and conclusions are drawn from the experience of the ICTY and its Completion Strategy.