Journal of International Criminal Justice Advance Access originally published online on February 28, 2007
Journal of International Criminal Justice 2007 5(2):348-359; doi:10.1093/jicj/mql095
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The Reality of Conducting a War Crimes Trial
* Judge of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and of the Supreme Courts of Scotland, who sat in the trial of Slobodan Milo
evi
with effect from the resignation of Sir Richard May, Presiding Judge, on 1 June 2004 until its premature termination on the death of the accused on 11 March 2005. An earlier version of this article was presented at the ETHICS regional workshop for Europe, held at Riga, Latvia on 8 June 2006.
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Abstract |
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Since proceedings at the international criminal tribunals are essentially adversarial in nature they inevitably are party-led, rather than judge-led. The inherent challenges of conducting a large-scale war crimes trial are further exacerbated when the accused chooses to represent himself. However, the author believes the bench has the opportunity, by robust application of a number of rules already available, to exert considerable influence over the course of events at all stages of proceedings, thereby ensuring fair and expeditious war crimes trials. The real benefits of the judicial process are to be found in the successful prosecution of the guilty and exoneration of the innocent: in view of the massive size of cases before the tribunals, that is only achievable by judicial control and focus on the real issues in dispute, even if this implies that the tribunals can no longer satisfy some of the original expectations with which they were set up. The author identifies a number of practical issues, to which judges at tribunals should always be alert, and illustrates some by reference to events during the trial of Slobodan Miloevi, as well as current proceedings before the ICTY.