The international criminal tribunal for Yugoslavia and the case of Milosevic

Abstract

Justice and Politics are inextricable not only as concepts but also in what regards their practical feasibility. This essay presents the establishment of the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the trial of the then head of State President Slobodan Milosevic, where the inextricability of Justice and Politics or raison d’état, was undeniable. The reluctance of the western states to intervene militarily in order to end the massacres and horrors in the Yugoslav Federation in the 1990’s had as a result the establishment of the ad hoc ICTY which served them both as an alibi for their indifference and as the means to sooth the growing public outrage about the atrocities committed, compared only to those of the Second World War. However the ICTY served also the Law, the protection of Human Rights in conflicts and as a legal instrument pursued the indictment and punishment of those who breached the customs of war, the law against genocide and for crimes against humanity. Due to the efforts and the persistence of the ICTY’s prosecutors and other jurists, justice prevailed over politics and for the first time an active head of state is being prosecuted. The trial of the then President Milosevic became a precedent for ending the impunity of the powerful. Unfortunately the death of Milosevic before a verdict and sentence left the Milosevic’s legacy of discord and friction unscathed. Albeit ICTY’s undisputed political intermingling its existence and function is still a victory of justice over political machinations and immunity of politics, nonetheless, ICTY’s effectiveness in what regards its objectives namely to sanction, to deter and to reconcile is still debated. Especially the objective of reconciliation of the populations of the dismantled Yugoslav Federation, whose suffering left deep scars and their expectations of justice did not met with the actual delivered results, for various reasons, was hardly achieved.