Kosovo Tribunals

Crimes against the international community are a collection of offences that are recognised by the international community as being of universal concern. However the prosecution of crimes against the international community can be controversial. Such crimes may be committed in the context of military conflict. They may be highly politically motivated, or they may have been ordered or committed by the state itself. The establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2002 was a significant development in the law of crimes against the international community. The independent international court established by the Rome Statute, acts as a last resort for crimes fitting into the three categories of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. Due to Australia’s Dualistic system, both the War crimes Act

this essay I will attempt to examine and analyse the effectiveness of international courts and

The Albanians were the majority and the Serbians being the minority. In this situation, the Serbians oppressed the Albanians. In retaliation, the Albanians formed a terrorist group known as the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) which was a terrorist group that fought for the rights of the Albanians. The various actions taken by the KLA caused NATO involvement. Their involvement required a series of air raids and bombings to flush the Serbian people out of Kosovo. However, the story gets much deeper than that.

After World War II, the trials of war criminals established the new beginning of international war crime prosecutions. Thousands of atrocities that occurred in the war fields had been documented- ranging from murders, rapes, torture, and overall inhumane mistreatment of non-combatants and prisoners of war. In an attempt to further prevent these from happening, war crimes are punished to protect humanity, maintain peace and prevent future incidents from occurring. The punishment for war crimes establishes that criminal actions against innocent people are not justifiable, and will not be tolerated, even in the most permissive situations of war. Furthermore, since the definition of war crimes has been established to prevent cruelty against other

The International Criminal Court (ICC), created in 1998 (Thayer and Ibryamova 2010), is responsible for investigating and prosecuting the most extreme cases, including crimes against humanity, aggressive crimes, war crimes, and genocide. The credibility of this institution, however, has been compromised due to the United States revocation of support and membership. Initially it is important to recognize the arguments against the United States becoming a member state of the ICC and what precipitated the U.S. withdrawing its signature from the document that instituted the Court. Once this has been established, addressing and refuting these objections will develop the arguments in favor of ICC membership. Finally, this analysis will lead to

Milosevic's failure to respect human rights and sign NATO's proposed peace agreement between the two, Yugoslavia and Kosovo, led to a NATO-led military campaign against Yugoslavia. In 1999, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution that suspended Yugoslav control over Kosovo and the newly independent territory was placed under UN administration. The United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), which authorized a NATO peacekeeping force to stabilize the region. Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia on February 17, 2008 and has been recognized by over half of United Nations members. On the 19th of April 2013, Serbia and Kosovo signed a historic agreement which has so far successfully normalized relations between the two

According to international committee of the red cross, a war crime is defined as: “1)making the civilian population or individual civilians, not taking a direct part in hostilities, the object of attack;(2)launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated;(3)making non-defended localities and demilitarized zones the object of attack.” However, it is challenging to interpret every state of affairs within only a single definition. The first war crimes tribunal since the end of World War II was in Yugoslavia. International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) states, “Between 1991 and 1995, the Yugoslav Army and Serbian paramilitaries occupied sections of Croatia. In mid-1995, the Croatian army reclaimed this territory, pushing out the Yugoslav Army and expelling many of the ethnic Serbs who had been living there for generations......generated a huge number of civilian casualties, human rights violations, and war crimes. To assess these crimes and determine culpability, even as the wars continued to rage, the United Nations established the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in 1993.” Serbian and Croatian leaders sacrificed civilians in order to fulfill their egoistic ambition to get a territory of Bosnia. It fact, war crime always abide by war and it can’t be helped. Though it is possible to identify each crime cases and rectify it subsequently. ICTY was established in order to achieve this goal. In the article the Truth About No Gun Ri, the author complicates matters further by stating, “That anxiety has been heightened by the ex-Yugoslavia war-crimes tribunal, which was created in 1993. Late in 1999, the

The evolution of international criminal justice is important to consider. Two ad-hoc tribunals, the International Criminal Tribunal of Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda (ICTR), have facilitated the adoption of the ICC. The ICC came into existence on July 1, 2002. The court operates on the principle of complementarity which means that the court does not function unless a state in question is unable or unwilling to investigate and, if warranted, prosecute for one of the covered crimes. Whereas the ICTY and the ICTR had primary jurisdiction and could supersede state action, the ICC only has the aforementioned

Di Giovanni, a senior foreign correspondent for The Times, lived through the Balkan wars in the former Yugoslavia. This book focuses mainly on the conflict in Kosovo in 1999 but Di Giovanni also reports on the situation from the initial dissolution of the country up until the attempt at reconstruction. The author also provides the reader with the historical context of the wars, such as the events since the death of Tito and especially since 1992. It was in 1991 that the Catholic- dominated Croatia and Slovenia declared themselves independent. This began the armed conflict between Croatia and Slobodan Milosevic's Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. Milosevic was not going to allow the country to be split up.

The allies thought that Serbia deserved to be rewarded. The U.S, British, and French governments all officially recognized Serbian valor during the ward, and the Battle of Kosovo became the subject of many sermons throughout the world as a valiant effort to defend Christianity (Vickers 1998: 97). WWI activated, mobilized, and politicized a Serbian notion of identity that would plant the seeds for future conflict (Harzl 2011: 56). WWI further consolidated the imagery of Serbians as victims, an imagery that would undergird the discourse of intellectuals in the late twentieth century. Serbia staggering amount of human loss particularly in Kosovo placed them well to argue that they needed the region to reestablish their cultural identity. National identity does not just have positive components, but needs negative moments and history that deprives that identity of something that is required for its full establishment. This was the backdrop for future arguments made by the Serbian elite and intellectuals to push for Serbian control over Kosovo (Shigeno 2004:

After the Rwandan Genocide several militia leaders were tried in a court. “One significant result was the establishment of a special international criminal tribunal to indict and try perpetrators of the Rwandan

Often termed as Europe's deadliest since World War II, the Yugoslavia War has been infamous for the war crimes, which include ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity and rape. These wars supplemented and aided the weathering of the Yugoslav state, when its constituent republics declared independence, but the issues of ethnic minorities in the new countries (chiefly Serbs, Croats and Albanians) were still unsettled at the time the republics were accepted internationally. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was established by the United Nations to prosecute these crimes. According to the International Centre for Transitional Justice, the Yugoslavia War led to the deaths of 140,000 people.

Individuals who commit war crimes and genocide undoubtedly deserve severe punishment, and their victims deserve justice. Though this sentiment would likely be agreed upon by a majority of people, the logistics of how exactly to carry out this punishment and procure justice are widely debated. Recently, international courts and tribunals have been set up to try individuals for war crimes and bring justice to the victims of these war crimes. However, these international courts and tribunals are often ineffective. Throughout this paper, I will explain why I agree with Adam Smith that domestic or hybrid courts are preferable over an international court system.

In the pursuit of positive peace for the global community, certain mechanisms are necessary in order to better protect human rights and resolve interstate conflicts. Prior to the events of World War II, a cogent set of laws defining those human rights, much less violations therein were never heard at an international scale. The International Criminal Court has the role as both appellate for justice and voice for peace in the international community but has not yet resolve the contradictory ends of both roles. That contradictory end is that many countries proclaim the necessity of the International Criminal Court as an advocate for conflict resolution and peace advocacy while being resist or outright antagonistic towards the court when their own state has committed those same crimes. To the ends of defending basic universal rights, the International Criminal Court (hereafter ICC) serves that capacity when state level systems cannot or will not act accordingly.

Serbia feels a cultural tie to Kosovo because it has many monasteries, churches, and religious sites that are significant to the orthodox Christian faith, which is the main religion for Serbs (Malcolm). The Serbian claim conflicts with the Albanian majority who believes they have a claim to Kosovo because of they are the largest group. Throughout history Kosovo has been profitable because it have many natural resources, such as metals like nickel, and it is known for its abundance of silver, which has caused conflict because many countries have wanted to claim it. During World War Two, Hitler used the mines in Kosovo for profit (Malcolm). Mostly, Kosovo has been coveted because it is in a good location with many mountains guarding it and has always been a checkpoint for many trade routes, which made it prone to conquests. Conflict can always be understood through history, and Kosovo’s strategic location is one main reason for the fighting.