The Srebrenica Massacre - Nova Srpska Politicka Misao

Securing Verdicts: The Misuse of Witness Testimony at The Hague
The ICTY and Justice
Though the ICTY claims that it is following in the great tradition of
moral accountability and individual responsibility established by
Nuremberg, one principle that guides the tribunal violates that Nuremberg
tradition. According to that tradition, following a superior official’s
orders does not justify a subordinate’s war crimes. The ICTY, on
the other hand, is generally not very interested in the crimes of the relatively
low-level people who directly committed them. As they are assumed
to have been following orders, their crimes are under standable
—even forgivable. Often, those committing them are not even indicted,
and, if they are, their punishment is fairly lenient. The ICTY refuses to
accept that war crimes take place in the heat of battle; that they may be
motivated by fear, revenge, vendettas and criminal behavior—the kinds
of things that happen once law-governed human existence collapses. Instead,
the crimes are presented as the consequence of a genocidal plan
hatched by political leaders.
To be sure, it was Nazi leaders rather than Nazi rank-and-while that
were on trial at Nuremberg. However, that made sense given that the
charter of the International Military Tribunal stipulated that the first
and most important crime was the crime against peace, “namely, planning,
preparation, initiation or waging of a war of aggression, or a war
in violation of international treaties, agreements or assurances.” “War
crimes” and “crimes against humanity” were taken to be the consequences
of that basic crime. They were lesser crimes that flowed directly
from that first, most important crime—the crime of destroying lawgoverned
human existence. Count One of the indictment of the Nazi
leaders, for instance stated that “All the defendants…participated as
leaders, organizers, instigators, or accomplices in the formulation or execution
of a common plan or conspiracy to commit, or which involved
the commission of Crimes against Peace, War Crimes, and Crimes
against Humanity.” Count Two focused exclusively on crimes against
peace. War crimes were the subject of Count Three, and crimes against
humanity of Count Four.
The ICTY statute, by contrast, following U.S. diktats, says nothing
about crimes against peace or wars of aggression. The statute lists as
crimes violations of international humanitarian law; grave breaches of
the Geneva Conventions of 1949 (the only one that the United States
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