The appellate proceedings in the Karadžić case have taken a new turn with an amicus curiae application submitted on February 21 2018 to the Residual Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals by two British academics, Dr. Yvonne McDermott and Dr. Federico Cerutti. The submission proposes to test the sustainability of the trial chamber’s conclusion that Radovan Karadžić possessed the requisite mens rea, or state of mind, to commit or facilitate the commission of genocide in Srebrenica.
The mens rea issue is of key significance for the purposes of the appeal because intent to commit genocide is one of the elements of the criminal offense charged.
Though the submission is written in technical language it’s thrust should be readily understandable to most reasonably educated readers, even if they lack legal training. We are therefore posting it below.
McDermott and Cerutti affirm that they have examined Karadžić’s first-instance verdict using a new computer program called CISpaces, analyzing the argumentation used in the court’s decision.
Essentially, the submission uses an “argumentation scheme” approach to identify possible logical weaknesses in the Karadžić trial chamber’s reasoning which could have led it to conclude that the Defendant did have the requisite intent to commit genocide in Srebrenica.
McDermott told BIRN that Karadžić’s case was chosen because “it had received an unprecedented level of academic coverage at the time of the judgment”, in which several authors criticized the findings that inferred Karadžić’s intent.
“We wished to assist the appeals chamber in its determination of whether the trial chamber erred in making these findings by unpacking the precise evidentiary basis for them, and by pointing out the inferences apparently drawn by the trial chamber in reaching its conclusions,” McDermott stated.
KARADZIC – REQUEST FOR LEAVE TO MAKE SUBMISSIONS AS AMICUS CURIAE