Pushing Back: Witnesses and Translation in the Radovan Karadžić Trial

Abstract

Radovan Karadžic, a powerful political figure in Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Yugoslav wars, was charged with genocide and war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY). His trial lasted for four years, with 499 days in court that were recorded on over 48,000 pages of transcripts. Close examination of these proceedings, in which Karadžic chose to defend himself before the court without defence counsel, allows us to identify some of the ways in which w...