The Balkan Conflicts Research Team is continuously producing superb, hard-hitting and intellectually provocative Twitters about Srebrenica and the Hague Tribunal. We highly recommend them to our readers who may follow them by visiting their Twitter account at: Balkan Conflicts Research Team@ResearchTeam
The tweet on ICTY’s “legacy” is their latest production.
What is the ICTY legacy?
From well before it closed officially at the end of 2017, the ICTY had started to promote its own version of the contribution it had made, hoping to entrench its reputation through ‘Outreachʼ and ‘Legacyʼ.
Why?
They were clearly concerned to ensure that the image of the Tribunal as a progressive court should be maintained. They lost no opportunity to praise themselves to the sky – even when they had acted in contravention of UN instructions – hoping that this would deter close scrutiny of their record: (Clip of Registrar)
Wasnʼt there some truth in their claims?
Not in the least. From the moment it was illegally set up by the UN, the ICTY was a fraud, breaking all the core conventions of modern justice. Their sole success was in pulling the wool over the eyes of the world, which they did with breathtaking audacity:
(Hocking clip)
“The ICTY set the bar. Now let us raise it higher. Let us demand justice where it is still denied, where it seems impossible. After the ICTY, we can and we must.”
What else did they do?
From 2010 onwards they have run large-scale Legacy Conferences and Outreach programmes, presenting the ICTY as a venerable organisation intent on promoting itself as the future model international justice. By any standard, this is indefensible. The ICTY loaded the dice in every imaginable way: in particular, admitting into evidence as established fact forensic and DNA findings that were not supported by primary evidence was of itself an act of the most serious criminality.
Wonʼt the truth out eventually?
We hope so. But there are now many who have much to lose should this ever happen. The United Nations, international politicians, media organisations,