That Someone Guilty Be Punished - International Center for ...

there is no negation and refusing of the fact that genocide happened.” In a similar vein, a
survivor from a detention camp near Prijedor, Muharem Murselović, has noted that “with th[e
ICTY] documentation, with those verdicts … the truth about the situation in Prijedor has been
established, and this is the largest, the major achievement of the ICTY.” 36
The less-than-hoped-for impact of the ICTY in the realm of acknowledgment of crimes
cannot fairly be attributed solely or even primarily to the Tribunal itself. Nor, however, was this
aim helpfully advanced by the Tribunal’s failure to develop an outreach strategy in a timely
and effective manner. Failure to undertake outreach at an early stage conceded the field of
interpretation to nationalist leaders and the media that are their megaphones. An ICTY outreach
program launched in 2004–05, Bridging the Gap, demonstrates the potential benefits
of a well-devised outreach initiative: under the program, once trial proceedings are completed,
ICTY officials and staff have met with local citizens and officials in the area where adjudicated
crimes occurred to describe the case from the investigation to appellate stage. Ordinary citizens
have been able to learn the facts about the crimes and the work of the ICTY without filtering
by local political leaders and ethnic media. The effect of these programs has often been
similar to that in Foča, where participants were shocked while listening to the accounts of the
sexual crimes committed against Bosniak women from the area. More than a few commented,
“You know, we really didn’t know this, it is a horrible crime.” 37 Even with the best outreach
efforts, however, it is unrealistic to expect the Tribunal to have singlehandedly overcome persistent
resistance among unapologetic politicians and unreformed media institutions.
Impact on Domestic War Crimes Prosecutions
Among the hoped-for goals cited by the UN Security Council when it established the ICTY,
there was no serious suggestion that the Tribunal in The Hague would strengthen the capacity
of courts in Bosnia to prosecute war criminals. 38 For a time, in fact, the ICTY was assigned a
supervisory function vis-à-vis Bosnian courts, restraining them from exercising war crimes
jurisdiction until prosecutors in The Hague determined there was proper cause for doing so.
It was unforeseen, therefore, that the ICTY would eventually play a key role, along with the
Office of the High Representative (OHR), in launching a war crimes chamber in Bosnia’s
then-new state court. 39
The principal impetus for this change was less visionary than pragmatic: Under pressure
to devise a strategy for completing its burgeoning caseload, ICTY judges determined that
the Tribunal would focus on prosecuting senior suspects and transfer lower-level indictees to
national courts. The Tribunal would not be able to do so, however, unless its judges were satisfied
that transferred cases would be fairly tried before impartial courts. Strongly preferring to
transfer appropriate cases to the countries where the crimes charged occurred, ICTY officials
paid special attention to Bosnian courts. When they did, they concluded that the “shortcom-
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