Christopher K. Lamont - International Criminal Justice and the Politics of Compliance

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND THE POLITICS OF COMPLIANCE

For Korana and Tyler

CHRISTOPHER K. LAMONT
University of Ulster, UK

ASHGATE

Christopher K. Lamont 2010

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Christopher K. Lamont has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Lamont, Christopher K.

International criminal justice and the politics of compliance.

1. International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons
Responsible for Serious Violations of International

Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former
Yugoslavia since 1991. 2. Criminal justice, Administration of. 3. International obligations. 4. War crime trials-
Former Yugoslav republics. 5. Jurisdiction (International law)

I. Title

341.69-dc22

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Lamont, Christopher K.

International criminal justice and the politics of compliance / by Christopher K. Lamont.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-7546-7965-3 (hardback) -- ISBN 978-0-7546-9921-7 (ebook)

1. International criminal courts--Former Yugoslav republics. 2. Criminal justice, Administration of--International cooperation. 3. International offenses--Former Yugoslav republics. I. Title.

KZ6304.L36 2009

341.6909497--dc22

2009038694

ISBN 9780754679653 (hbk)

ISBN 9780754699217 (ebk)
ISBN 9781409499602 (ebk-ePUB)

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall

We are in Your Hands

In December 1998 the president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Gabriella Kirk McDonald, reported the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia to the United Nations Security Council for unabashedly breaching its obligations to the Tribunal under Security Council Resolutions 827, 1160, 1199, 1203, and 1207. After detailing Belgrades litany of non-compliance acts, which included the denial of visas to ICTY personnel, Kirk McDonald urged the Council to take enforcement action. She pleaded, not only does the Tribunal depend upon you, all member States look to you for the exercise of your Chapter VII authority which they ceded to you with the adoption of the UN Charter. We are in your hands. Despite Kirk McDonalds testimony, the Security Council failed to confront Belgrades non-compliance with Tribunal orders. Instead Belgrades recalcitrance persisted throughout 1999 and hardened during the course of NATOs Operation Allied Force. Then, in the midst of NATOs 78 day air campaign for Kosovo and six months after Kirk McDonald appeared before the UNSC, ICTY Chief Prosecutor Louise Arbour secured the certification of an indictment against Yugoslav President Slobodan Miloevi. The indictment of a sitting head of state by an international criminal tribunal was an ambitious act given that recalcitrant local governments across the former Yugoslavia proved reluctant to transfer lowly members of municipal police forces or low ranking military officers. Needless to say the prospect of a sitting head of state taking up residence at the Tribunals Scheveningen detention facility on the outskirts of The Hague seemed a remote prospect in 1999, even for those working within the Tribunals Office of the Prosecutor.