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VIOLETA BESIREVIÉ
ICTY, can be blamed for making such a mistake. Acquittals did happen both in
Nuremberg and in The Hague.“
It is a different issue whether all the responsible for grave crimes were brought
to justice, either before the IMT or the ICTY. As to Nuremberg, particular
attention is often drawn to the fact that war crimes committed by the Allies were
not subject to trial. The slogan “victor’s justice” associated with the IMT well
explains this flaw. Whether “victors’ justice” could be true and complete justice
is an enduring question which, in my opinion, should be answered negatively. But
leaving this question for some other discussion, important here to emphasize is
that neither moving from the victor’s justice to ad hoc justice before the ICTY
did bring all responsible for international crimes to justice, although the ICTY
had jurisdiction over all parties included in the conflict. Thus, the guilt of none
of the leading state representatives involved in the conflict at the territory of the
former Yugoslavia has not been determined in the Hague. True is, unfortunate
developments, mostly connected with their death either during the trial or before
the indictment was confirmed, prevented the establishment of the guilt. Thus,
death prevented the proceeding against Slobodan Milosevic, the former president
of Serbia, from being closed with a judgment, while Franjo Tudjman, the former
Croatian president, died right before the indictment against him was to be issued."
Nevertheless, one cannot resist the impression that the Hague Prosecutor too
guickly and too easily decided not to press charges against those most responsible
for crimes committed during NATO intervention in Serbia, such as the bombing
of the major TV station in Belgrade, which resulted in civilian casualties.
All things considered, it can be argued that selective justice, however
incomprehensively pursued, did not manage to blur the fact that the trials before
the IMT and ICTY succussed in the international criminalization of internal
atrocities. On this point, lessons from Nuremberg were crucial for international
prosecutions in The Hague. But in early 1990s it was perceived that it was time
to do justice differently from what was done in 1946: retributive justice, that
included trials, punishment and reparations was not enough. When doing justice
in the region of the former Yugoslavia became urgent, the politics of international
criminal justice was enriched with relational approaches to justice, i.e. combined
with peacebuilding and reconciliation.’
For the acquittals in Nuremberg, see Cryer, Nuremberg, 442; for the persons acquitted of
all charges before the ICTY, see https://www.icty.org/en/about/chambers/acquittals.
15 AFP, UN Court Exposes Uneasy Legacy of Croatia’s ‘father’ Tudjman, France 24 (17
December 2017), https://www.france24.com/en/20171217-un-court-exposes-uneasy¬
legacy-croatias-father-tudjman.
15 For more on relational approaches to justice, see Jennifer J. Llewellyn — Daniel Philpott
(eds.), Restorative Justice, Reconciliation, and Peacebuilding, Oxford, OUP, 2014.
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