2 Criticisms of the Court

Some of the criticisms levelled against the court include:

• It was established by the UN Security Council instead of the UN General Assembly, which makes it seem like a court created by the Great Powers in order to try citizens of smaller nations. The UN Charter specifically gives the right to establish such courts to the General Assembly. The Council essentially is the equivalent of a world cabinet whereas the Assembly is the Parliament. This has been the legal basis of Milosevic's claim that the court has no legal authority.
• It was established on the basis of the Chapter VII of the UN Charter; relevant portion of the charter reads "the Security Council can take measures to maintain or restore international peace and security"; it is disputed whether a tribunal could be considered a measure to maintain or restore international peace and security, especially given UN practices.
• An apparently disproportionately large number of indictees are Serbs (to the extent that a sizeable portion of the Bosnian Serb and Serbian political and military leaderships have been indicted), whereas there have been very few indictments resulting from crimes committed against Serbs (many Croat indictees were charged with crimes committed against Bosnian Muslims). Defenders of the Tribunal respond that Serb control of the established command structure (and most of the weaponry) of the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) from the start of the various wars facilitated the commission of crimes on a wider and more organised scale; furthermore, the Serb command structure facilitated the identification of those with command responsibility for war crimes. Nonetheless the vast majority of those ethnically cleansed are Serbs while the overwhelming majority of indictees are also.
• Many of the indictees are still not apprehended, which reflects badly on its image. Defenders point out that the Tribunal has no powers of arrest, and is reliant on other agencies (notably national governments, SFOR and KFOR) to apprehend and extradite indictees.
• The Tribunal's power to issue secret indictments creates uncertainty among people who regard themselves as possible indictees, which places an unreasonable strain on their ability to proceed with their everyday lives, both in the short and long term.
• The Tribunal in effect makes no distinction between the Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian languages, issuing documents in what it terms "B/C/S" ("Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian") with no regard to differences between the three; see Serbo-Croatian language. Supporters of this approach respond that since all three forms are mutually intelligible to a high degree (and indeed were officially considered to be single language before the breakup of the former Yugoslavia), this is equivalent to criticising the United Nations for not issuing documents separately in British, American and Canadian English. However, the criticism further points out that despite the facts that Serbian is recognised as a part of B/C/S, that it is the variant with most speakers, and that most indictees are Serbs, the tribunal uses exclusively translators who speak Bosnian and Croatian variants. Some of the indictees have filed complaints about not being able to fully understand the translations.
• Despite it's articles the "court" is funded, not by the UN, but by various Nato countries. This tends to give the impression confirmed by Mr Shea's statement under.

2.1 NATO involvement

Further, NATO spokesman Jamie Shea said the following about the court:

NATO countries are those that have provided the finance to set up the Tribunal, we are amongst the majority financiers, and of course to build a second chamber so that prosecutions can be speeded up so let me assure that we and the Tribunal are all one on this, we want to see war criminals brought to justice and I am certain that when Justice Arbour goes to Kosovo and looks at the facts she will be indicting people of Yugoslav nationality and I don't anticipate any others at this stage.

Mr. Shea's certainty appears to have been justified, since complaints over NATO war crimes were dismissed by the tribunal who claimed they had no jurisidiction over NATO.

In December 2003, Wesley Clark testified behind closed doors during Slobodan Miloševic's trial. In the 1990s, Clark had spoken with Milosevic for more than 100 hours in his role as the head of the U.S. military team during the Dayton Agreement negotiations and as NATO's Supreme Allied Commander in Europe.

Critics of the court took Clark's testimony as a prime example of the court's flaws. During Clark's cross-examination by Milosevic the following exchange is found:

MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] General Clark, is it true that in an interview that you gave for The New Yorker on the 17th of November, you said that the war that you waged was technically illegal?

[Judge Richard May, presiding, cuts Miloševic off and some back and forth follows between the two, in which Judge May reminds Miloševic that since Miloševic is cross-examining General Clark, he can only address matters regarding which the witness was asked to testify during the examination in chief by the prosecutions counsel. Since the legality of the NATO military action was not discussed during examination in chief, the rules of procedure do not permit Miloševic to raise that issue during cross-examination. At the end of the exchange, Miloševic asks:]

MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] So I cannot ask him anything at all about the war waged by NATO against Yugoslavia. Is that what you're saying?

JUDGE MAY: Yes.

MILOSEVIC: [Interpretation] Well, Mr. May, that really is an example showing that this is truly nothing more than a farce.

[Arguably, Judge May expressed himself badly. Miloševic would have been allowed to ask General Clark about the legality of the NATO military action if he had himself called General Clark as a witness and examined him in chief on another occasion.]

[Assuming Clark had been willing to appear as a Milosevic witness to answer such charges - Milosevic has now called Clark & so should be allowed to ask such questions if Clark, Clinton, Blair etc consent to appear][This however does not answer the basic question of why the ICTY, under a duty to prosecute all war crimes involving Yugoslavia did not indict Clark when he had just publically admitted to the war crime of waging aggressive war]

3 Indictees

Some of the notable indictees include but are not limited to:

• Rahim Ademi
• Milan Babic
• Tihomir Blaškic
• Janko Bobetko
• Ante Gotovina
• Sefer Halilovic
• Goran Jelisic
• Radovan Karadžic
• Dario Kordic
• Momcilo Krajišnik
• Radislav Krstic
• Fatmir Limaj
• Milan Martic
• Slobodan Miloševic
• Ratko Mladic
• Mile Mrkšic
• Mladen Tuta Naletilic
• Naser Oric
• Biljana Plavšic
• Miroslav Radic
• Vojislav Šešelj
• Veselin Šljivancanin

4 See also

• International Criminal Court

5 External links

• Official website of ICTY
• Jurist Milosevic Trial discussion
• resolution 827
• ICTY fact sheet - including complete list of indictees.
• International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milosevic
• Raymond K. Kent: The Hague and Serb history
• Raymond K. Kent: The Hague Tribunal and the Serbs

Human rights bodies International courts International criminal law United Nations tribunals History of Bosnia and Herzegovina

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