Justice as a Security Strategy? International Justice and the Liberal Peace in the Balkans

Abstract

The establishment of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in the midst of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina was seen by many as a radical innovation in security thinking and practice. This article examines the security implications of international justice in the Balkans by situating the analysis within the broader context of international interventions in the region. The article starts by elaborating a distinctive conception of ‘security’ that emerges from the pursuit of international justice, addressing questions such as security for whom, security from what and security by what means. It then examines the jurisprudence of the ICTY to determine whether judicial practice has tended to promote this distinctive approach to security. The final section explores the interactions of international justice and liberal peace interventions in the Balkans, focusing in particular on peacemaking, peacekeeping and peacebuilding. The article argues that the revival of international justice, half a century after the Nuremberg Trials can be understood as signalling a shift in security paradigms from statism to human rights, while also giving rise to deep tensions between them. These tensions are most clearly expressed in the interactions of international justice with other security instruments of the liberal peace, which are often employed by the international community in situations where international crimes occur.