‘We Learnt that from The Hague’

Abstract

While much attention has been paid to contributions of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) to International Humanitarian Law and International Criminal Law, the ICTY’s impact on countries under its jurisdiction and on their criminal justice systems is under-researched. Using Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Serbia as case studies, this chapter discusses the Tribunal’s influence on fairness in war crimes trials that have been conducted in the region since the early 2000s. It shows that the ICTY had only scarce effects on fairness of proceedings, with great impact in BiH and almost absent in Serbia. The difference is explained using the ‘norm cascade model’ and ‘spiral model’, describing how a norm ‘cascades’ from the international level into the national justice system. It shows that the ICTY’s permanent presence in BiH and large absence in Serbia were factors accounting for whether national counterparts followed ICTY jurisprudence and practice.