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Ad-hoc International Criminal Tribunals

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Law, Politics and the Limits of Prosecuting Mass Atrocity

Part of the book series: Human Rights Interventions ((HURIIN))

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Abstract

Rogers pays close attention to the underlying material conditions and the more immediate circumstances that gave rise to a second pair of tribunals designed to prosecute mass atrocity. This chapter argues that the consensus within the UN Security Council to establish ad-hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda reflects the rise of US global hegemony in the aftermath of the Cold War. The chapter reveals the real purpose behind these ad-hoc tribunals was the UN Security Council’s wish to reassert its primacy in world affairs. Casting light on contemporaneous peace-building efforts, this chapter suggests these tribunals are best understood in the context of neoliberalism’s spread from the 1970s up until the 1990s. Rogers goes as far as to claim these prosecutions of mass atrocity are a continuation of the politico-cultural civil war fought for control over the modernity project.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Richard Cockatt, The Fifty Years War: The United States and the Soviet Union in World Politics, 1941–1991 (New York and London: Routledge, 1995), 3.

  2. 2.

    David Bosco, Rough Justice: The International Criminal Court in a World of Power Politics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 34.

  3. 3.

    Between 1991 and 2006, the UN Security Council passed 1,055 Resolutions and vetoed only 18, signalling a period of increased activism on the part of the Council. The Council authorised twenty sanction regimes between 1990 and 2006, beginning with its comprehensive sanctions against Iraq, and established 43 peacekeeping operations. Vaughan Lowe et al., The United Nations Security Council and War: The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), at 643–662, 689 & 678–686.

  4. 4.

    Antonio Cassese, Cassese’s International Criminal Law, revised by Antonio Cassese et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 258.

  5. 5.

    George Bush, “Address Before a Joint Session of the Congress on the Cessation of the Persian Gulf Conflict,” (1991) The American Presidency Project, available at http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=19364.

  6. 6.

    Richard J. Goldstone and Adam M. Smith, International Judicial Institutions: The Architecture of International Justice at Home and Abroad (London and New York: Routledge, 2009), 95. (Emphasis in original.)

  7. 7.

    Antonio Cassese, “On the Current Trends towards Criminal Prosecution and Punishment of Breaches of International Humanitarian Law,” European Journal of International Law 9 (1998): 7.

  8. 8.

    William Schabas, Unimaginable Atrocities: Justice, Politics, and Rights at the War Crimes Tribunals (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 14.

  9. 9.

    Susan L. Woodward, “The Security Council and Wars in the Former Yugoslavia,” in The United Nations Security Council and War: The Evolution of Thought and Practice since 1945, ed. Vaughan Lowe et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 406–440, especially at 408; and UNSC Res 713 (S/RES/713) (1991).

  10. 10.

    Daphna Shraga and Ralph Zacklin, “The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia,” European Journal of International Law 5 (1994): 1.

  11. 11.

    Luc Reydams and Jan Wouters, “The Politics of Establishing International Criminal Tribunals,” in International Prosecutors, ed. Luc Reydams et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 23.

  12. 12.

    Report of the European Community investigative mission into the treatment of Muslim women in the former Yugoslavia, available at http://www.womenaid.org/press/info/humanrights/warburtonfull.htm; the Report of the Steering Committee in the International Conference on the Former Yugoslavia; the Interim Report of the Commission of Experts established by Resolution 780 (1992) in American Journal of International Law 88(4) (1994): 784; and UNSC Res 780 (S/RES/780) (1992).

  13. 13.

    Shraga and Zacklin, “International Criminal Tribunal,” 2.

  14. 14.

    Robert Cryer et al., An Introduction to International Criminal Law and Procedure (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 123.

  15. 15.

    Reydams and Wouters, “Establishing International Criminal Tribunals,” 23.

  16. 16.

    Reydams and Wouters, “Establishing International Criminal Tribunals,” 24.

  17. 17.

    Shraga and Zacklin, “International Criminal Tribunal,” 2; and Cryer et al., An Introduction, 122–123.

  18. 18.

    UNSC Res 808 (S/Res/808) (1993).

  19. 19.

    David Scheffer, All the Missing Souls: A Personal History of the War Crimes Tribunals (Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2012), 20.

  20. 20.

    Cryer et al., An Introduction, 132; and UNSC, The Situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina (S/1995/999) (1995).

  21. 21.

    Scheffer, All the Missing Souls, 20.

  22. 22.

    Cryer et al., An Introduction, 128.

  23. 23.

    UNSC Res 827(S/RES/827) (1993).

  24. 24.

    Goldstone and Smith, International Judicial Institutions, 97.

  25. 25.

    Cassese, Cassese’s Law, 259.

  26. 26.

    Makau Matua, “Never Again: Questioning the Yugoslav and Rwanda Tribunals,” Temple International and Comparative Law Journal 11 (1997): 175

  27. 27.

    UNSC Res 812 (S/RES/812) (1993); UNSC Res 846 (S/RES/846) (1993); and UNSC Res 872 (S/RES/872) (1993).

  28. 28.

    Hazel Cameron, Britain’s Hidden Role in the Rwandan Genocide: The Cat’s Paw (New York: Routledge, 2013), 23 & 104.

  29. 29.

    Reydams and Wouters, “Establishing International Criminal Tribunals,” 29; and UNSC Res 995 (S/RES/995) (1994).

  30. 30.

    Cryer et al., An Introduction, 139.

  31. 31.

    Reydams and Wouters, “Establishing International Criminal Tribunals,” 29.

  32. 32.

    Payam Akhavan, “The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda: The Politics and Pragmatics of Punishment,” American Journal of International Law 90(3) (1996): 509.

  33. 33.

    Samantha Power, “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide (London: Flamingo, 2003), 335–340.

  34. 34.

    Power, “A Problem from Hell,” 342.

  35. 35.

    Cameron, Cat’s Paw, 38.

  36. 36.

    Akhavan, “Politics and Pragmatics,” 502.

  37. 37.

    Cameron, Cat’s Paw, 61–104. In this and the following paragraph I draw heavily on Cameron.

  38. 38.

    Cameron, Cat’s Paw, 80.

  39. 39.

    UNSC Res 912 (S/RES/912) (1994).

  40. 40.

    Akhavan, “Politics and Pragmatics,” 501.

  41. 41.

    Payam Akhavan, “Justice and Reconciliation in the Great Lakes Region of Africa: The Contribution of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda,” Duke Journal of Comparative and International Law 7 (1997): 328.

  42. 42.

    Matua, “Never Again,” 176–178.

  43. 43.

    Cameron, Cat’s Paw, 113. (Emphasis added.)

  44. 44.

    Akhavan, “Justice and Reconciliation,” 327.

  45. 45.

    Luc Reydams and Jed Odermatt, “Mandates,” in International Prosecutors, ed. Luc Reydams et al. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 91; and Danilo Zolo, Victors’ Justice: From Nuremberg to Baghdad, trans. M.W. Weir (London: Verso, 2009), 29.

  46. 46.

    Akhavan, “Politics and Pragmatics,” 503.

  47. 47.

    Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, UNTS 78 (entered into force on 12 January 1951).

  48. 48.

    Reydams and Odermatt, “Mandates,” 92–93.

  49. 49.

    Cryer et al., An Introduction, 129.

  50. 50.

    Akhavan, “Politics and Pragmatics,” 505.

  51. 51.

    Reydams and Odermatt, “Mandates,” 94.

  52. 52.

    Michael Pugh, “Peacekeeping and Critical Theory,” International Peacekeeping 11(1) (2004): 41.

  53. 53.

    Reydams and Odermatt, “Mandates,” 89.

  54. 54.

    Madoka Futamura and James Gow, “The Strategic Purpose of the ICTY and International Peace and Security,” in Prosecuting War Crimes: Lessons and Legacies of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ed. James Gow et al. (New York: Routledge, 2014), 15.

  55. 55.

    Michael J. Struett, The Politics of Constructing the International Criminal Court: NGOs, Discourse, and Agency (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 181.

  56. 56.

    Zolo, Victors’ Justice, 30–31.

  57. 57.

    Robert Cryer, Prosecuting International Crimes: Selectivity and the International Criminal Law Regime (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 124.

  58. 58.

    Cryer et al., An Introduction, 138.

  59. 59.

    Rachel Kerr, “Introduction: Trials and Tribulations at the ICTY,” in Prosecuting War Crimes: Lessons and Legacies of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ed. James Gow et al. (New York and London: Routledge, 2014), 5.

  60. 60.

    Cryer et al., An Introduction, 144.

  61. 61.

    Gary Feinberg, “The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia: The Establishment and Evaluation of a Unique Concept in International Justice Administration,” War Crimes, Genocide & Crimes against Humanity 2 (2006): 89.

  62. 62.

    Akhavan, “Politics and Pragmatics,” 509.

  63. 63.

    Yvonne Dutton, Rules, Politics, and the International Criminal Court: Committing to the Court (London and New York: Routledge), 123.

  64. 64.

    Akhavan, “Politics and Pragmatics,” 509.

  65. 65.

    Pádraig McAuliffe, Transitional Justice and Rule of Law Reconstruction: A Contentious Relationship (London and New York: Routledge, 2013), 6.

  66. 66.

    McAuliffe, Contentious Relationship, 190–191.

  67. 67.

    McAuliffe, Contentious Relationship, 9.

  68. 68.

    McAuliffe, Contentious Relationship, 189.

  69. 69.

    Lars Waldorf, “Like Jews Waiting for Jesus: Posthumous Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda,” in Localising Transitional Justice: Interventions and Priorities After Mass Violence, ed. Rosalind Shaw and Lars Waldrof with Pierre Hazan (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 183.

  70. 70.

    Waldorf, “Waiting for Jesus,” 188.

  71. 71.

    Waldorf, “Like Jews Waiting for Jesus,” 200.

  72. 72.

    Waldorf, “Like Jews Waiting for Jesus,” 191.

  73. 73.

    Cryer et al., An Introduction, 130.

  74. 74.

    Schabas, Unimaginable Atrocities, 16.

  75. 75.

    Payam Akhavan, “Beyond Impunity: Can International Criminal Justice Prevent Future Atrocities?,” American Journal of International Law 95 (2001): 12.

  76. 76.

    Akhavan, “Beyond Impunity,” 15.

  77. 77.

    Akhavan, “Beyond Impunity,” 23.

  78. 78.

    Akhavan, “Beyond Impunity,” 13.

  79. 79.

    Akhavan, “Beyond Impunity,” 24.

  80. 80.

    Akhavan, “Beyond Impunity,” 21.

  81. 81.

    Akhavan, “Beyond Impunity,” 8. The individual was not always considered the basic unit of society as at various times and places it had been family, tribe, caste, religious community and the polis. See Larry Sledentop, Inventing the Individual: The Origins of Western Liberalism (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2014).

  82. 82.

    Bosco, Rough Justice, 38.

  83. 83.

    Akhavan, “Beyond Impunity,” 10.

  84. 84.

    Akhavan, “Beyond Impunity,” 23.

  85. 85.

    Akhavan, “Justice and Reconciliation,” 341–342.

  86. 86.

    Chandra Lekha Sriram, “Transitional Justice and the Liberal Peace,” in New Perspectives on Liberal Peacebuilding, ed. Edward Newman, Roland Paris and Oliver P. Richmond (Tokyo, New York, Paris: United Nations University Press, 2009), 112.

  87. 87.

    Sriram, “Transitional Justice,” 112.

  88. 88.

    Sriram, “Transitional Justice,” 122.

  89. 89.

    Sriram, “Transitional Justice,” 114.

  90. 90.

    Sriram, “Transitional Justice,” 124.

  91. 91.

    Roland Paris, At War’s End: Building Peace After Civil Conflict (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 99.

  92. 92.

    Paris, At War’s End, 101.

  93. 93.

    Paris, At War’s End, 109.

  94. 94.

    Paris, At War’s End, 110.

  95. 95.

    Paris, At War’s End, 213.

  96. 96.

    Paris, At War’s End, 215.

  97. 97.

    Paris, At War’s End, 217.

  98. 98.

    Michael McKinley, Economic Globalisation as Religious War: Tragic Convergence (Milton Park: Abindon, Oxon: Routledge), 107.

  99. 99.

    Paris, At War’s End, 107.

  100. 100.

    Paris, At War’s End, 99–100.

  101. 101.

    Paris, At War’s End, 106.

  102. 102.

    Paris, At War’s End, 75–76.

  103. 103.

    Waldorf, “Waiting for Jesus,” 185.

  104. 104.

    Paris, At War’s End, 71.

  105. 105.

    Paris, At War’s End, 71–72.

  106. 106.

    As cited in Paris, At War’s End, 77.

  107. 107.

    Paris, At War’s End, 4.

  108. 108.

    Paris, At War’s End, 5.

  109. 109.

    Paris, At War’s End, 29.

  110. 110.

    Paris, At War’s End, 6.

  111. 111.

    Tor Krever, “International Criminal Law: An Ideology Critique,” Leiden Journal of International Law 26(3) (2013): 718.

  112. 112.

    Krever, “Ideology Critique,” 715.

  113. 113.

    Krever, “Ideology Critique,” 719.

  114. 114.

    Krever, “Ideology Critique,” 721–722.

  115. 115.

    Danilo Zolo, Victors’ Justice: From Nuremberg to Baghdad, trans. M.W. Weir (London: Verso, 2009), 46.

  116. 116.

    McKinley, Tragic Convergence, 39.

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  1. Centre for Defence and Security Studies, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand

    Damien Rogers

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Rogers, D. (2018). Ad-hoc International Criminal Tribunals. In: Law, Politics and the Limits of Prosecuting Mass Atrocity. Human Rights Interventions. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-60994-2_5

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