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

suspects, all in the eight months before July 1995, and had managed to secure custody of
only one. 163 Perhaps even more significantly, the sole defendant in ICTY custody at the time
of the Srebrenica massacre had been transferred from Germany, leaving intact the impunity
indictees still enjoyed in the Balkans. 164
The situation had improved, but not nearly enough, by the time abuses in Kosovo intensified
in 1998–99. In the ICTY’s annual report to the Security Council in 1997, then President
Cassese noted that the Tribunal’s mandate of “putting an end” to international crimes “has not
yet been properly fulfilled because the vast majority of persons indicted by the Tribunal are still
at liberty, ignoring their indictments with seeming impunity.” 165 Two years later, the Tribunal’s
annual report, which covered the period in which abuses in Kosovo reached their zenith, noted
that 35 of the Tribunal’s publicly indicted suspects were still at large; 166 these included Ratko
Mladić and Radovan Karadžić, by then twice indicted on genocide and other charges.
Despite the crimes that were not prevented by the mere fact of the ICTY’s existence,
many of our Bosnian interlocutors believe the Tribunal has prevented some crimes and that
its operation over time has served to prevent future crimes. While acknowledging that perpetrators,
“thinking they were untouchable,” were not deterred simply by the ICTY’s creation,
Professor Smail Čekić added: “They thought the court would never become what it actually
has become.” 167 Even Begović (who, as noted earlier, faults the ICTY for failing to prevent
the Srebrenica genocide) believes that, as a result of the Tribunal’s existence, “some of those
criminals were a bit afraid.” Despite her frustrations with the ICTY, therefore, she believes “it’s
good to have the Hague Tribunal in existence.” 168 In a similar vein, Keraterm camp survivor
Edin Ramulić said that as long as the ICTY was still investigating new cases, unindicted war
criminals in Prijedor “were a little bit afraid of the ICTY.” 169
Emsuda Mujagić, who leads a non-governmental organization in Kozarac, places particular
hope in the long-awaited trials of two men whom Bosniak victims consider most
responsible for their suffering. As the trial of Radovan Karadžić approached, she told us that
his trial and “I hope [that of Ratko] Mladić … means that even in the future, others would be
thinking twice before committing such crimes.” 170 Dino Djipa believes the ICTY has already
had such an effect. In his view, “the most useful” impact of the ICTY is that it has helped make
“people … aware that war crimes are wrong” and, in consequence, “in the event of a future
war, everyone would be so careful about not committing war crimes because of the work of
the ICTY.” 171 ICTY judges, too, hope the Tribunal’s achievements will have a deterrent impact
beyond its own writ, “the territory of the former Yugoslavia.” 172 Addressing the question of general
deterrence, ICTY Judge Wolfgang Schomburg told us he is “convinced that in the future”
potential perpetrators will be deterred from committing atrocities as a result of the work of
contemporary international tribunals. Noting that the leaders who instigate campaigns of
atrocity include “highly intelligent people,” he believes that “when confronted with ... whether
to commit crimes, they will see a real risk of being convicted, being brought to prison.” 173
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