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The Impact of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia on War Crime Investigations and Prosecutions in Serbia

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The Impact of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia on War Crime Investigations and Prosecutions in Serbia THE IMPACT OF THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNAL FOR YUGOSLAVIA ON WAR CRIME INVESTIGATIONS AND PROSECUTIONS IN SERBIA BY KEREN MICHAELI DOMAC/13, NOVEMBER 2011 ABOUT DOMAC THE DOMAC PROJECT focuses on the actual interaction between national and international courts involved in prosecuting individuals in mass atrocity situations. It explores what impact international procedures have on prosecution rates before national courts, their sentencing policies, award of reparations and procedural legal standards. It comprehensively examines the problems presented by the limited response of the international community to mass atrocity situations, and offers methods to improve coordination of national and international proceedings and better utilization of national courts, inter alia, through greater formal and informal avenues of cooperation, interaction and resource sharing between national and international courts. THE DOMAC PROJECT is a research program funded under the Seventh Framework Programme for EU Research (FP7) under grant agreement no. 217589. The DOMAC project is funded under the Socio-economic sciences and Humanities Programme for the duration of three years starting 1st February 2008. THE DOMAC PARTNERS are Hebrew University, Reykjavik University, University College London, University of Amsterdam, and University of Westminster. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Adv. Keren Michaeli is a lecturer in Public International Law at the School of Law, the College of Management, Academic Studies in Israel. She is a PhD candidate at the University of Oxford, St. Antony's College. She received her LL.M. from Georgetown University (2004). ACKNOWLDEGEMENTS The author would like to thank the interviewees for their time and assistance. A special appreciation goes to Ivan Jovanovic of the OSCE Mission to Serbia and to Bogdan Ivanisevic for their help and comments. This paper represents not the collective views of the DOMAC, but only the views of its author © 2011 Keren Michaeli Published by DOMAC Reykjavik University Menntavegi 1, 101 Reykjavik Iceland www.domac.is EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The subject of this report is the ICTY impact on three areas of concern to the DOMAC project in Serbia: rates of prosecutions, changes to criminal law and capacity development. It is one out of three case-studies on ICTY impact (the additional case- studies concerned Croatia and BiH). The significance of Serbia as a case study on ICTY's impact lies in the deep rooted antagonism it developed against the ICTY since the Tribunal's establishment in 1993. The resulting difficult relationship between Serbia and the ICTY represents the most complex modality of interaction of international/national justice systems and is therefore very useful for identifying potential points of cooperation. A main conclusion of this study is that the ICTY has been instrumental in generating domestic war crimes proceedings in Serbia, not by way of persuasion but by way of creating a political reality which, after the regime change in 2000, Serbia could not stand up to. This is the ICTY's foremost influence on national war crimes proceedings. The disconnect between Serbia and the ICTY probably could not have been helped during the Milosevic regime, and it is doubtful whether adequate outreach on the part of the Tribunal could have helped resolve the perceived conflict between the interests of the two. Relative to this state of things, the contribution of the ICTY to domestic war crimes prosecutions has been quite impressive. Once the ICTY began to realize the necessity of identifying local needs of the Serbian judicial system and to cultivate a positive working relationship with Serbian institutions entrusted with war crimes prosecutions, it has managed to export expertise – as well as evidence – thereby enhancing and complementing the limited Serbian capacity to process war crimes. It should be emphasized that the limited capacity of the Serbian system does present a challenge to further ICTY contributions. In this sense it is important to acknowledge that the ICTY also constitutes one contributing factor to the unpopularity of war crimes proceedings, which, in turn, explains the lack of support and allocation of resources to the Serbian war crimes system. The net result is that despite the professional level of the proceedings, that system produces no more than ten judgments per year and does not prosecute high ranking members of the former Serbian leadership. TABLE OF CONTENTS Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................... 5 Table of Contents ......................................................................................................................... 6 List of abbreviations ...................................................................................................................... 7 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................................... 9 1.1. Object of the Report ............................................................................................................... 9 1.2. Structure of Report ............................................................................................................... 10 1.3. Methodology ........................................................................................................................ 10 2. Conflict Background ................................................................................................................ 12 2.1 The Conflict ........................................................................................................................... 12 2.2 The Mass Atrocities .............................................................................................................. 16 3. Post Conflict Country Background .......................................................................................... 18 3.1 Political Conditions ................................................................................................................ 18 3.2. General description of the legal system ............................................................................... 21 3.3 Capacity of the legal system to prosecute mass atrocity cases ............................................. 24 4. The National Response to the Mass Atrocities ........................................................................ 27 5. The International Response to the Mass Atrocities ................................................................. 32 5.1 The Establishment of the ICTY ............................................................................................. 32 5.3 Prosecutions of Crimes Concerning Serbia ........................................................................... 33 6. Cooperation between the ICTY and Serbian Domestic System............................................... 37 6.1 Initial Period .......................................................................................................................... 38 6.2 Cooperation of Serbia with the ICTY Post Milosevic ............................................................. 43 6.3 Cooperation of the ICTY with Serbia ..................................................................................... 48 7. The Impact of the ICTY on Domestic Prosecutions In Serbia .................................................. 59 7.1 Investigation/Prosecution Rates ............................................................................................ 61 7.2 Normative Impact .................................................................................................................. 71 7.3 Capacity Development .......................................................................................................... 82 8. Conclusion .............................................................................................................................. 93 Appendix I – Table of War crimes cases before the Belgrade War Crimes Court ........................ 96 Annex II – Capacity Development Activities Organized by the ICTY to Members of the Serbian War Crimes System .................................................................................................................. 101 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ARBiH........................................................................................................................... Army of BiH BiH............................................................................................................ Bosnia and Herzegovina CC....................................................................................................... 2006 Serbian Criminal Code DOS.............................................................................................. Democratic Opposition of Serbia DS........................................................................................................... Serbian Democratic Party EU.......................................................................................................................... European Union HDZ.............................................................................................. Croatian Democratic Community HLC......................................................................................................... Humanitarian Law Center IBA....................................................................................................
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