SENSE – TRIBUNAL is a project of SENSE News Agency based at the International War Crimes Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. The focus of this project is regular, balanced and comprehensive coverage of the work of the ICTY, and the activities of ICJ (International Court of Justice) and ICC (International Criminal Court).
The project maintains a searchable record
of cases that came under the Tribunal's jurisdiction.
See also the following coverage from the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR):
Tribunal Update on issues and events at the War Crimes Tribunal
(Searchable index)
See also the archives of the
International
Justice Watch Discussion List: A forum of news and opinions on
the international war crimes tribunals for ex-Yugoslavia and
Rwanda, as well as the conflicts that gave rise to the
tribunals, the International Criminal Court, and
international humanitarian law (genocide, crimes against
humanity, war crimes).
Milosevic's old allies celebrate
his "innocence"Disputed claims that
the Hague Tribunal said that Milosevic was innocent are
being trumpeted by Serbian ministers and other propagandists
trying to whitewash the country's wartime past.
For profiles of some of the war-crimes defendants at The Hague, see They Would Never Hurt a Fly, by Slavenka Drakulic (2005)
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Peace and Punishment By Florence Hartmann, 2007
With ICTY we have almost 15 years of experience of how an international judicial body works - important information about the problems, deficiencies and negatives, which were part of the ICTY experience. The fact is that the US, the UK, and France did know that an offensive on Srebrenica was going to happen. Our investigation revealed that the U.S. had very good intelligence capacity in the region in 1995. They created an intelligence underground compound in Croatia in order to intercept conversation of the Serbian leadership. We were interested in the U.S. intelligence materials because of our investigation against
Milošević and especially in conversations between the Serbian and the Bosnian Serb leadership in spring and summer of 1995. However the U.S. refused to give it to us.
So far we know, however, that Mladic was in contact with the Belgrade leadership to prepare the attack on Srebrenica. So by intercepting those conversations the US had enough advance notice of what was going to happen. Through other intelligence means, they knew that special units trained to kill were joining the area just before the beginning of the offensive. But neither the US nor France or the UK did anything to stop it.
In this section we will include articles of particular interest as they come to our attention.
In the wake of the confirmation of Ratko Mladic’s final judgment, the
rulings of the Hague war crimes courts still leave us with much to discover
about truth, guilt, the meaning of genocide and the elusive concept of
reconciliation. By Eric Gordy, Balkan
Transitional Justice, June 9, 2021
Radovan Karadzic has been sentenced to spend the
rest of his life in prison - but in the Balkans, his vile legacy lives on
through politicians who deny genocide and refuse to accept the truth about
the crimes for which he was convicted. It was on Karadzic’s orders that
Sarajevo was besieged, that Srebrenica was overrun and all its Bosniak boys
and men slaughtered, that the towns of Bratunac, Foca, Kljuc, Prijedor,
Sanski Most, Vlasenica and Zvornik and many, many more, were ethnically
cleansed of non-Serbs. By Jelena Subotic, Balkan Insight, March 21,
2019
They're distressed that he was not
convicted of genocide for the Bosnian Serb campaign to drive out non-Serbs
from over 40 municipalities at the beginning of the war in 1992. By Judith
Armatta, December 20, 2017
The most recent interactive narrative produced by SENSE – Transitional
justice center (TCJ), entitled
ICTY: The Kosovo
Case 1998-1999, explains
how the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
investigated, reconstructed, and prosecuted the crimes committed in Kosovo
in 1998 and 1999. It consists of nine short films (10 to 15 minutes long)
and a selection of evidence presented and admitted at the trials for Kosovo
crimes. SENSE News Agency, 2017
Targeting History and Memory
The ICTY and the investigation, reconstruction, and
prosecution of the crimes against cultural and religious heritage. 9-minute
video by SENSE News Agency, 2016
The Long Shadow of the Seselj Verdict
Seselj helped set up paramilitary units that drove tens of thousands of
Muslims and Croats from their homes in eastern Bosnia and around Sarajevo,
killing at least 900 people. By Gordana
Knezevic, April 7, 2016
Storm In The Hague
The Office of the Prosecutor of the
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) issued a
total of 12 indictments against 18 political, military, and police officials
from Yugoslavia, Serbia, and Croatia for crimes in the Republic of Croatia
between 1991 and 1995. The cases are enumerated in text and video in this
presentation. SENSE News Agency/SNV, 2015
Miscarriage of Justice
Has Vojislav Seselj been provisionally released for ‘humanitarian reasons’
pending his trial judgment? Or has Seselj actually forced the Tribunal to
expel him from the Detention Unit? Is the miscarriage of the 10-years-long
painful search for the truth and justice the acceptable price for the
punishment of a ‘disloyal judge’?
SENSE News
Agency, November 11, 2014
Vojislav Šešelj leaves the scene
as he entered it, a monument to other people's failures. Having constructed
his first political career in Bosnia-Hercegovina on the strength of (largely
accurate) claims of corruption in the local Communist party, he went on to
build a second one in Serbia with an opposition party constructed by
counterintelligence services designed to preemptively occupy political space
that could eventually be taken up by a genuine opposition party. Building on
a career that drew on the failure of two consecutive parties, he made a
well-publicised
third career in The Hague drawing on the failures of legal and medical
institutions.
By Eric Gordy, November 7, 2014
Former high Yugoslav officials were affirmed
guilty of murder, deportation, and inhumane treatment of Kosovo Albanians in
1999. The appellate judgment openly dismissed the finding of Judge Meron's
Appeals Chamber that the "specific direction" of the accused was a
"necessary element" for a conviction of aiding and abetting. Balkan Insight, January 23, 2014 See also
Joint Criminal Enterprise Confirmed and
Brammertz highlights importance of the Appeals Chamber's finding, SENSE
News Agency.
A judge at the United Nations
war crimes tribunal in The Hague has exposed
a deep rift at the highest levels of the court
in a blistering letter suggesting that the
court’s president, an American, pressured other
judges into approving the recent acquittals of
top Serb and Croat commanders.
By Marlise Simons, The New York Times, June 14, 2013
What Happened to the Hague Tribunal? The tormented
reasoning of the tribunal’s
800-page
verdict, acquitting two Serbian state
security officials offers some fascinating reading: It
affirms that crimes were committed and describes
them in excruciating detail. It names the
victims, names the perpetrators, and in most
cases details the connections between the
accused parties and the direct perpetrators.
Then it declines to convict, on the ground that
the evidence does not show that the support
provided to the criminals was “specifically
directed towards the commission of the crimes.” By Eric Gordy, The New York Times, June 2, 2013
Two puzzling judgments in The
Hague
The credibility of the International
Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is in shreds and few understand the reasoning behind recent judgments.
June
1, 2013
Hague Verdicts Allow Commanders to Evade JusticeThe
Hague Tribunal’s acquittal of Yugoslav general Momcilo Perisic worryingly shifts
responsibility for war crimes. Since 2012, the tribunal has sought to see out its existence
by undoing the accomplishments of the previous phase, applying narrow standards of
liability to shift guilt away from the commanders and back onto the people who
made no decisions but carried out plans developed by others. By Eric Gordy, Balkan Insight, March
1, 2013
Western Promises Discussion of the book Peace and Punishment: The Secret Wars of Politics and International Justice by Florence Hartmann, formerly spokesperson for the ICTY chief prosecutor. Reviews the role of Western governments in undermining the work of the Tribunal. Discusses role of
Milošević as the mastermind of the Srebrenica massacre, and argues that Western officials knew this when they were negotiating with him. The book reports that Serbian documents provided strong evidence of Belgrade's control over Serbian political and military forces in Croatia and Bosnia, including the previously unknown existence of two entities within the joint chiefs of staff in Belgrade in charge of coordinating funding and personnel for the Serbian armies in those two countries By Marc Perelman, The Nation, January 7, 2008
Two cases at the Hague tribunal, concerning Kosovo and Srebrenica, will show the details of the guilt of the indicted Serbian authorities. IWPR, July 14, 2006 Kosovo TrialSrebrenica Trial
Genocide, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity A Topical Digest of the Case Law of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
This 861-page book organizes the decisions of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia by topic, including genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, individual criminal responsibility, command responsibility, affirmative defenses, jurisdiction, sentencing, fair trial rights, guilty pleas and appellate review. Download full text of the book (pdf file, 2.7 Mb). July 2006
"Patient: S. Milošević."Reporter, a Dutch television-program, has published the entire medical file of Slobodan
Milošević on its website. The site contains internal memos from the ICTY, correspondence between his attending physicians, brain scans, hearing tests, lab results, medicine charts, and the medical examiners' report.
Milošević and his son wanted his medical file to be made public. June 2006
Book Review: Judgement Day: The Trial of Slobodan
Milošević
Reviewed by Elmira Bayrasli, December 2005
Author Chris Stephen sheds light on how dealing with its most infamous defendant inadvertently helped shape policymaking with regard to the creation of the International Criminal Court, ICC, the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal. Once the court’s greatest supporter, America is now its fiercest critic. The US government is currently in the forefront of efforts to prevent war crimes justice becoming a permanent feature on the world map, in opposition to the European Union and its support for the new International Criminal Court.
The Capitulation of the Hague Tribunal By Marko Attila Hoare, June 2005
The recent announcement that the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia will not be issuing any more indictments against war-crimes suspects amounts to the Tribunal’s capitulation: with the sole exception of
Milošević himself, the men most responsible for the bloodshed in the former Yugoslavia have escaped justice.
Milošević Wire Tap Revelations IWPR, February 6, 2004 (Republished November 9, 2005)
Telephone intercepts appear to expose
Milošević role in Croatian and Bosnian conflicts.
Inside the Serbian War Machine The
Milošević
Telephone Intercepts, 1991-1992
By Josip Glaurdic, East European Politics and Societies, February 2009
This article examines the arguably most interesting pieces of evidence used
during the trial of Slobodan
Milošević
at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former
Yugoslavia—more than two hundred recordings of intercepted conversations that
took place in 1991 and 1992 between Milošević, Radovan Karadžić,
Dobrica Ćosić,
and various other protagonists on the Serbian side of the wars in Croatia and
Bosnia and Herzegovina.
See also: Intercepts of telephone calls between (former) Yugoslav officials
Audio and transcripts are available from Balkan Witness upon request.
The conversations
between various Serb plotters
and murderers were added to the evidence at the Milošević
trial. Transcripts are in English and Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian. 1991-1992
The Fog of Justice By Tim Judah, New York Review of Books, January 15, 2004 (PDF)
How the Milošević trial is affecting the former Yugoslavia. For a comment on Judah's article, click here.
War Crime and Punishment By Guy Lesser, Harper's Magazine, January 2004 Extensive analysis of the Hague tribunal.
Lagging Behind Reality By Bogdan Ivanisevic, Vreme (Belgrade), December 11, 2003
An analysis explaining the main fallacies in the Serbian public's negative perceptions of the Hague tribunal's work.
Expert Testifies Racak Not Staged Coalition for International Justice, March 12, 2003
Dr. Helena Ranta's testimony summarized. She reiterated that "There were no indications of [the Racak massacre victims] being other than unarmed civilians."
Serbs, Not NATO Strike, Killed Inmates, Hague Court HearsBy Marlise Simons, The New York Times,
August 28, 2002
In May 1999 NATO air strikes killed 19 Albanians in a Serbian prison. The next day Serbian authorities killed over 100 more and tried to lay the blame on NATO.
The Case of the Missing Witnesses, by Mirko Klarin, IWPR, June 12, 2002
Key US officials involved in the international bid to solve the Kosovo crisis are absent from the witness list in the
Milošević trial.
The Star of The Hague, by Tim Judah, New York Review of Books, April 25, 2002
Report on the trial from Belgrade and The Hague.
Kosovo Victims Gagged, by Mirko Klarin, IWPR, April 22, 2002. (Republished February 22, 2005)
Statements of Kosovar witnesses to Serbian war crimes are allowed to be filed on paper, but the world does not hear their stories.
An Audience with Milošević, by Mirna Jancic, IWPR, April 6, 2002. (Republished February 22, 2005)
Milošević may mock his victims from the Hague tribunal, but it's their best hope of getting justice. As one journalist remarked, "Imagine if Osama Bin Laden was allowed to cross-examine the survivors of the World Trade Centre." Yet I left for London convinced that the Balkans' only hope of establishing some accountability and at least some of the truth about the region's recent wars lies right there, in The Hague.
The Normalcy of War Criminals, by Slavenka Drakulic, Mother Jones, February 27, 2002
As the trial of Slobodan
Milošević continues, a Croatian novelist considers how disturbingly mundane war criminals are.
Milošević Challenged by Racak Survivors, by Gordana Igric, IWPR, February 18, 2002. (Republished February 22, 2005) Slobodan Milošević accuses the West of fabricating a massacre at Racak as a pretext for NATO intervention. One reporter at the scene recalls the survivors' testimony.
Milošević Planned Kosovo Deportation, by Anthony Borden, IWPR, February 13, 2002
Prosecution says Milošević was "controlling force" behind a "concerted effort" to expel Albanians from Kosovo.