Home Court Advantage? Domestic Trials and Transitional Justice in Bosnia-Herzegovina

Abstract

Many justifications are made for the use of international criminal prosecution to address mass atrocities and human rights violations in post-conflict societies. Domestic courts are easily politicized; rule of law within these countrie is usually weak, and domestic institutions and leaders are generally considered to be less credible than representatives of the international community. As discussed in Chapter 6, these and other arguments led to the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 1993. This organization was also seen as an evidence of the globalization of democratic norms and the triumph of liberal legalism (Bass 2000, 20; Hagan and Kutnjak Ivkovic 2006). Yet within a decade, the United Nations (UN) Security Council acknowledged the shortcomings of these assumptions and the need for other instruments to lay the foundation for a durable peace in the Balkans. The Completion Strategy adopted by the UN in August 2003 reflected this thinking. By 2010, the ICTY’s work would be concluded and remaining cases would be transferred to domestic courts in the Balkans. Thus. domestic trials, rather than an international justice system, would become the primary mechanism to address the past and to encourage justice and reconciliation in the future.