Overview

The international war crimes tribunals that emerged in the early 1990s sought to distance themselves from the first generation of tribunals established by the victorious Allied powers at Nuremberg and Tokyo nearly half a century earlier. This new model of justice would be truly independent and fully international in origin and operation. Such autonomy and neutrality would ensure the new tribunals' legitimacy, and thereby help fulfill their ultimate mission of rehumanizing nations, communities, and individuals rent by atrocity and trauma. Whereas the Nuremberg and Tokyo military tribunals prosecuted only the crimes of the losers, the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda would prosecute war crimes suspects from all sides of an armed conflict. And whereas the Nuremberg and Tokyo courts were arms of the Allied occupation forces, the ICTY and ICTR were intended to be free from control by any state or group of states. But being created without a standing army was not meant to leave today's tribunals powerless. The UN Security Council endowed the tribunals with the legal authority to carry out their mandate to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide without state interference. When called upon by these courts, all UN member states would be legally bound to cooperate without delay. This requirement of state compliance would particularly oblige those nations complicit in atrocities to hand over the suspects, witnesses, and evidence essential for the trial process and the survival of the tribunals.