Ad Hoc Tribunals—Completion Strategy Updates

This week, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) presented reports on their completion strategies to the United Nations Security Council.

The ICTR reported that it remains on course to complete its trial work by the end of 2008.^[1] The ICTY did not make any statement about progress toward its proposed completion date of 2008, but instead discussed new initiatives designed to bring greater efficiency to proceedings at the Tribunal and efforts to obtain the arrest and surrender of ICTY indictees still at large.^[2]

ICTR
ICTR President Erik Møse reported that judgments are expected in two cases this summer and that the Tribunal is on track to complete its trial work by the end of 2008.^[3] President Møse presented the following snapshot of Tribunal activity:

• Trials completed: 28
• Indictees currently on trial: 27
• Indictees awaiting trial: 14
• New trials beginning in the second half of 2006: 3
• Trials to be completed by 2008: 68-70
• Indictees at large:18 (of these, 12 or so will be transferred to national courts for trial)

President Møse called on member states to cooperate in apprehending any remaining indictees at large and in accommodating individuals who have been acquitted by the Tribunal and released.^[4]

ICTY
Chief Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte’s report to the Security Council supported her assertion that “[s]peeding up the proceedings is a top priority of my Office,” by detailing many specific initiatives designed to create greater efficiency at the Tribunal.^[5] However, the bottom line was this: “[I]t is inconceivable that the ICTY closes its doors with Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic at large.”^[6]

The report did not provide any estimate of when the Tribunal’s trial work will be completed. Instead, the Chief Prosecutor discussed efficiency initiatives and blasted Serbia, Montenegro, the Republika Srpska in Bosnia, and even Russia for failing to produce six missing ICTY indictees including Mladic and Karadzic.^[7] Ms. Del Ponte also warned that if fugitive Vlastimir Djordevic is not surrendered within the next few weeks, he will require a trial separate from his six co‑defendants—another likely extension of the original completion date for the Tribunal.^[8]

The Chief Prosecutor’s report to the Security Council ended with a vaguely menacing advisory. Ms. Del Ponte stated that, given a seeming lack of political will among the Balkan states to capture and surrender the remaining indictees, “I will have not choice but to seek from the Council the powers to arrest fugitives where ever (sic) they are and to allocate to my Office the necessary resources for this.”^[9] What she proposes to allocate to her Office, and from where, is a mystery.

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[1] ICTR President and Prosecutor Address the Security Council, ICTR Press Release ICTR/INFO‑9‑2‑479.EN, June 8, 2006 [hereinafter ICTR Press Release].
[2] Tribunal’s Prosecutor Addresses Security Council on Completion Strategy Progress, ICTY Press Release, AN/MOW/1085e, June 7, 2006. (The press release shows a publication date of “May 7, 2006.”)
[3] ICTR Press Release supra note 1.
[4] ICTR Press Release supra note 1.
[5] Statement by Tribunal’s Prosecutor Carla Del Ponte to the Security Council 7 June 2006, ICTY Statement, June 7, 2006.
[6] Id. (emphasis mine)
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] Id.