Has the ICTY Brought Justice to the Victims of War in Bosnia and Herzegovina?

Abstract

The bloody war that took place on the territory of former Yugoslavia at the end of the 20th century marked the beginning of a series of violent “new wars” which resulted in the suffering of a large number of people all around the world. Large numbers of them are civilians and noncombatants (in Bosnia and Herzegovina that was around 40 percent). To find a proper answer to these crimes is not only an obligation under the international and domestic law, but before that, a matter of compassion, humanity and solidarity with those people. Unfortunately, it seems that answer is still inadequate. One of them, probably the most significant, was the creation of International Courts for the prosecution of war crimes committed during these conflicts. Among all goals that are foreseen to be achieved with these courts, one of the main goals was to provide justice to the victims of war crimes committed. This article aims to present the work of the ICTY in relation to fulfilling this honest, but hard task, with respect to the victims in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). These findings could be useful for the future work of international (and domestic) tribunals providing “criminal justice” to the victims and post conflict societies, being often only justice that victims will ever receive.