Revisiting the Balkan Crisis: A UN Question; The European Connection and the US Solution.

Jackson N. Maogoto, University of Newcastlle

Abstract

This Article examines the conflict in the former Yugoslavia which gave birth to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTFY). The ICTFY established the beginning of a new pattern in the genuine international implementation of international criminal and humanitarian law and the move back to the international model inaugurated at Nuremberg which had in the Cold War era been boldly supplanted by national prosecutions. The Article seeks to show that even this ad hoc tribunal was the by-product of international realpolitik. It was born out of a political desire to redeem the international community’s conscience rather than the primary commitment of the international community to guarantee international justice. The ad hoc tribunal was established after efforts to reach political settlement had proved futile and had in fact shielded the bellicose Serbs from firm and decisive international action, allowing them to further their nationalist agenda at the expense of other entities of the Yugoslavian federation. The ICTFY was not established because of the primary view by the UN or the powerful States that control it over the intrinsic value on punishing war criminals or upholding the rule of law but rather the shame that resulted from a misguided conception that the Balkan crisis would be effectively resolved through a political settlement.