some concluding remarks - Project on International Courts and ...

932 INTERNATIONAL LAW AND POLITICS [Vol. 31:919Ghali made a desperate effort to raise 5,000 troops tostrengthen the peacekeeping force there. But nobody—East,West, North, or South—was willing to commit any troops inthose circumstances. Prevention was considered, but therewas no political will for it. Does this mean that, after the tragedy,nothing should have been attempted or done?It is likewise true that the “natural judge” in criminal mattersis the territorial judge, because he is the nearest to thefacts and the best able to reconstitute what happened and tounderstand the mentality and motivation of the local peopleinvolved. But this natural judge is not always available or credible.This is why it is of crucial importance to devise a goodworking relationship between international tribunals, as a lastresort against impunity, and internal courts and tribunals thatcontinue to play the role of the “natural judge” in normal circumstances.Indeed, neither in terms of resources nor interms of proximity and access to relevant persons, evidence,and events does criminal justice provide an optimal solution.It is a second best. But in certain circumstances, the best is notavailable, or not credible. In these circumstances, a less perfectmachinery of justice is better than no justice at all.Whatever the criticisms that can be addressed to the InternationalCriminal Tribunals, it is clear that their establishmenthas thrust the issue of international criminal justice from therealm of theoretical speculation into that of practical politics.This shift in itself is a breakthrough in the development of internationallaw. This is not to mention the potentially majorcontribution of international criminal tribunals in the longrun—of integrating, through their jurisprudence, the disjointedand overlapping concepts we inherited from Nurembergand Tokyo into a coherent normative system of internationalcriminal law. 9In the face of all the practical problems raised by tragicevents, if <strong>some</strong>thing can be done about them, however partialand imperfect a response this may be, I do not consider thatthe best course of action is to say that unless this response isperfect in every way, it should not be tried at all (assuming thatwe can know beforehand what the perfect response is). Weshould first try what is feasible, then try to improve on that, in9. I have discussed this aspect in my separate opinion in the Tadic Case.See Prosecutor v. Tadic, supra note 6 (separate opinion of Judge Abi-Saab).