The International Tribunal established to prosecute war crimes in former Yugoslavia is now prosecuting its former spokeswoman for publishing a book about the tribunal. Florence Hartmann faces up to seven years in jail for contempt of court.
The crux of the dispute is a set of Serbian government minutes that implicated Milosevic in war crimes. In 2003, when the Milosevic trial seemed to be falling apart, the Tribunal made a deal with Serbia, which handed over the minutes with the assurance that they'd remain confidential except as needed to convict Milosevic. Keeping them confidential may have compromised the ability of Bosnia to prove that Serbia was responsible for genocide in a separate case brought before the International Court of Justice.
So it looks as though the tribunal essentially sacrificed Bosnia's claims because it was desperate to make sure that the Milosevic case actually produced a conclusive verdict. If that was its goal, it made a bad bet; Milosevic died while still on trial. Later, in 2007, Hartmann wrote a book about the trial, mentioning the minutes despite the confidentiality promises that the tribunal had made to Serbia.
This is a hard case in many ways. All prosecutors need to cut deals. All courts need to enforce their orders and the confidentiality of their deliberations. But both are inclined to mask their mistakes in clouds of self-righteousness and threats of prosecution. Journalists, too, are remarkably good at dressing up self-interest as righteousness. Nobody looks good in this fight.
One thing is clear, though. The tribunal's decisions here were profoundly political. What's more important, convicting Milosevic or determining Serbia's role in the Bosnian genocides? Should the story told by the minutes be made public? These are hard questions, and they ought to be made by someone without an ax to grind -- or at least by someone who can be held accountable for grinding its ax too enthusiastically. In this case, it's likely that the tribunal is indeed grinding its own ax with the enthusiasm of bureaucrat scorned -- making secrecy deals to stave off a debacle in the Milosevic trial and then prosecuting employees who expose the deal to public scrutiny and second-guessing.
So, what if we think the tribunal got it wrong? Where do we go if we want to stop an institution that seems to be sacrificing everything in pursuit of self-vindication?
In a democracy, the elected leader of the government would be held responsible, and fear of being held responsible would force the leader to take a close look at the Hartmann prosecution. But there is no democracy at the tribunal. The institution answers, vaguely, to the United Nations, where responsibility is diffused and in any event entirely lacks democratic accountability.
If the only conviction that comes out of the Milosevic trial is Florence Hartmann's, well, that's life in a transnational world.
The crux of the dispute is a set of Serbian government minutes that implicated Milosevic in war crimes. In 2003, when the Milosevic trial seemed to be falling apart, the Tribunal made a deal with Serbia, which handed over the minutes with the assurance that they'd remain confidential except as needed to convict Milosevic. Keeping them confidential may have compromised the ability of Bosnia to prove that Serbia was responsible for genocide in a separate case brought before the International Court of Justice.
So it looks as though the tribunal essentially sacrificed Bosnia's claims because it was desperate to make sure that the Milosevic case actually produced a conclusive verdict. If that was its goal, it made a bad bet; Milosevic died while still on trial. Later, in 2007, Hartmann wrote a book about the trial, mentioning the minutes despite the confidentiality promises that the tribunal had made to Serbia.
This is a hard case in many ways. All prosecutors need to cut deals. All courts need to enforce their orders and the confidentiality of their deliberations. But both are inclined to mask their mistakes in clouds of self-righteousness and threats of prosecution. Journalists, too, are remarkably good at dressing up self-interest as righteousness. Nobody looks good in this fight.
One thing is clear, though. The tribunal's decisions here were profoundly political. What's more important, convicting Milosevic or determining Serbia's role in the Bosnian genocides? Should the story told by the minutes be made public? These are hard questions, and they ought to be made by someone without an ax to grind -- or at least by someone who can be held accountable for grinding its ax too enthusiastically. In this case, it's likely that the tribunal is indeed grinding its own ax with the enthusiasm of bureaucrat scorned -- making secrecy deals to stave off a debacle in the Milosevic trial and then prosecuting employees who expose the deal to public scrutiny and second-guessing.
So, what if we think the tribunal got it wrong? Where do we go if we want to stop an institution that seems to be sacrificing everything in pursuit of self-vindication?
In a democracy, the elected leader of the government would be held responsible, and fear of being held responsible would force the leader to take a close look at the Hartmann prosecution. But there is no democracy at the tribunal. The institution answers, vaguely, to the United Nations, where responsibility is diffused and in any event entirely lacks democratic accountability.
If the only conviction that comes out of the Milosevic trial is Florence Hartmann's, well, that's life in a transnational world.
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