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The Memorial: to successfully push for the creationThe memorial of a permanent ICC. But the highand cemetery costs and glacial movement of thein Srebrenica- tribunal’s cases, along with itsPotocari honors inability to gain trust in resistantthe victims of the settings like Serbia or to measurably1995 massacre. promote reconciliation (at times,Remains are still it has seemed to do the opposite),being identified raised concerns. Critics have usedand buried. these shortcomings to argue thatinternational tribunals are not onlydivisive but a waste of resources that could be spent betterelsewhere in fledgling societies.More practically, the shortcomings also contributedto the U.N. Security Council and the ICTY developingthe 2003 completion strategy that placed an increasedresponsibility on the national courts. The completionstrategy also reflected a belief that the passage of timehad stabilized national governments of the formerYugoslavia to the point where they could begin to handletheir own war crimes cases. (In fact, some war crimes trialshad taken place in national courts in the region, though thecredibility of the proceedings were of regular concern tohuman rights groups.)The situation in Serbia was nevertheless harrowing in2003. Milosevic was ousted in 2000 by the DemocraticOpposition of Serbia, a tenuous alliance between thenationalism of Vojislav Kostunica, who became president,and the more moderate and pro-West factions led by ZoranDindic, who became prime minister. Dindic operatedbehind Kostunica’s back to orchestrate Milosevic’s arrestand transfer to the ICTY in 2001. In March 2003, anorganized crime group assassinated Dindic in an operationreportedly called “Stop The Hague.”The tragedy not only intensifiedcrackdowns on organized crime,which had flourished underMilosevic, but it also createdincreased momentum for a WarCrimes Chamber. Significantdomestic support already existedfor the establishment of a newchamber for organized crimecases. International pressure fromEurope and the U.S. along with theexpectation of ICTY case transfersallowed the creation of theBelgrade War Crimes Chamber tobe “folded into” the same process,according to OSCE’s Jovanovic;both new chambers were createdin 2003. Jovanovic also said therewas a genuine desire on the part ofsome Serb prosecutors and judgesas well as other members of the government to prove thatSerbia could handle its own war crimes cases.Vukcevic said he accepted the job because he felt it wasimportant and honorable work."We prosecute people whose hands are stained with bloodand who brought shame on our country," he said. "Ourchildren do not deserve to be left with such a heavy burdenon their shoulders, and that is ... a strong motive behindone’s decision to take on a duty like this."A successful completion strategy would also requirecredible domestic prosecutions in the other republics.In Bosnia-Herzegovina, where the war had inflictedtremendous damage to physical and administrativeinfrastructures, the new domestic chamber required moreformal international participation, even though there wasa stronger demand for war crimes cases in that country.The U.N. Office of the High Representative for Bosnia-Herzegovina and the ICTY established a specialized warcrimes chamber in Sarajevo that began operations in 2005.Though part of the domestic justice system, the court wasset up as something of a hybrid with the participation ofinternational judges and prosecutors who have been phasedout of the operations over time. Like Serbia, Croatia’swar crimes cases have taken place without internationalparticipation, most of them in various local courts aroundthe country, though recent reforms are designed to funnelthe cases to specialized chambers.All of these domestic efforts have received their share ofmixed reviews over the years. The dedicated chambers inBosnia-Herzegovina and Serbia have been generally viewedas meeting international legal standards for war crimesprosecutions. The cases in Croatia, with so many tried indispersed local courts, have received the most criticism forL A W D R A G O N 42 I s s u e 13Photo by: john ryan