* This text was reproduced and reformatted from the text available at the United Nations website (visited Apr. 4, 2011) http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/unsc_resolutions10.htm.

1 S.C. Res. 1966, U.N. Doc. S/RES/1966 (Dec. 22, 2010).

2 S.C. Res. 1503, U.N. Doc. S/RES/1503 (Aug. 28, 2003); S.C. Res. 1534, U.N. Doc. S/RES/1534 (Mar. 26, 2004). In effect, the Resolution welcomed the detailed ICTY Completion Strategy initiated by the ICTY judges, which contained the suggested target deadlines that were subsequently adopted by the Security Council. The Resolution further called on the ICTR to come up with its own, similarly detailed Completion Strategy.

3 The ICTY has to date referred thirteen cases and hundreds of investigative files to the courts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia. No cases have been referred from the ICTR to Rwanda. In 2007, the ICTR Prosecution submitted five requests for referrals; all were unanimously rejected because of concerns that there would be no fair trial and that the death penalty would be imposed. In November 2010, three new requests were submitted. However, two cases have been transferred from the ICTR to France.

4 There were some concerns that some indictments were submitted prematurely to meet the deadline. Some other measures included, for example, the possibility of appointing ad litem judges and procedural mechanisms for facilitating handling of evidence in court.

5 Both tribunals are still fully operational, but they are losing their staff rapidly. In fact, staff retention has turned out to be one of the biggest problems associated with the Completion Strategy, making it all the more difficult to meet its goals. The Resolution establishing the Mechanism might be one of the tools to provide a modicum of certainty to the staff, at the very least by setting more firm deadlines.

6 ‘‘To combat impunity for those responsible for serious violations of international humanitarian law and the necessity that all persons indicted by the ICTY and ICTR are brought to justice.’’ See S.C. Res. 1966, supra note 1.

7 Other members were representatives of interested countries, the UN Office of Legal Affairs, the tribunals, the Special Court for Sierra Leone (‘‘SCSL’’), the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (‘‘ECCC’’), and members of the civil society in the former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone.

8 Int’l Ctr. for Transitional Justice, Closing the International and Hybrid Criminal Tribunals: Mechanisms to Address Residual Issues (Feb. 1, 2010) (briefing paper), available at http://www.ictj.org/static/Prosecutions/ICTJ_ResidualIssues_bp2010.pdf.

9 The ICTY President urged the Security Council in 2007 to clarify that the trial of the fugitives by the international community does not hinge upon the international tribunal’s proposed Completion Strategy dates. Press Release, President Pocar’s Address Before the Security Council (Dec. 11, 2007), available at http://www.icty.org/sid/8818; see also Press Release, Prosecutor’s Address to the Security Council (Dec. 15, 2006), available at http://www.icty.org/x/file/Press/PR_attachments/p1137e-annex.htm (‘‘This time, however, I believe it is essential to also seek fresh guidance on fundamental issues of the completion strategy-namely, a strong message is needed from the Council in relation to the fugitives. . . . And that message should be that their trial can begin in The Hague at any time until 2010, and a mechanism will be established for them to be tried in The Hague after that date . . . .’’). On December 19, 2008, the President of the Security Council issued a statement about the completion strategy and acknowledged ‘‘the need to establish an ad hoc mechanism to carry out a number of essential functions of the Tribunals, including the trial of high-level fugitives, after the closure of the tribunals. In view of the substantially reduced nature of these residual functions, this mechanism should be a small, temporary, and efficient structure. Its functions and size will diminish over time. Its expenses will be expenses of the Organization in accordance with Article 17 of the Charter of the United Nations.’’ Statement by the President of the Security Council, U.N. Doc. S/PRST/2008/47 (Dec. 19, 2008), available at http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/atf/cf/%7B65BFCF9B-6D27-4E9C-8CD3-CF6E4FF96FF9%7D/ICTY&R%20SPRST%202008%2047.pdf.

10 Indeed, while there were variations in the considered proposals (the proposals included simply extending but significantly reducing the staff and the budget of the current tribunals, or maintaining only a small mechanism while transferring most functions to national courts or establishing one or more mechanisms), the tendency was to maintain some type of structure for a considerable period of time.

11 U.N. Secretary-General, Rep. of the Secretary-General on the Administrative and Budgetary Aspects of the Options for Possible Locations for the Archives of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Seat of the Residual Mechanism( s) for the Tribunals, U.N. Doc. S/2009/258 (May 21, 2009).

12 Statute of the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals art. 4, S.C. Res. 1966, U.N. Doc. S/RES/1966, Annex 1 (Dec. 22, 2010) [hereinafter Statute].

13 ‘‘Residual’’ might be taken to mean marginal, left-over functions, which does not apply in the circumstances. In reality, the work of the Mechanism will be more or less the same as that of the tribunals, but much smaller in scope.

14 The Resolution requires the tribunals to complete their remaining work no later than December 31, 2014.

15 This includes trial and appellate proceedings. It is by now probably too late to join the case of recently arrested Ratko Mladić (the former Commander of the Main Staff of the Army of the Serb Republic) with that of Radovan Karadžić (the former President of the Serb Republic), which started in October 2009. He will in all likelihood require a separate trial. In practice, that would mean that the ICTY would continue processing Mladić in a trial; the trial would likely take several more years, significantly extending the life of the ICTY.

16 Statute, supra note 11, art. 27.

17 Id. art. 20.

18 Goran Hadžić, the former President of the Republic of Serbian Krajina. Ratko Mladic was arrested on May 26, 2011.

19 See supra note 5.

20 Statute, supra note 11, art. 1(4).

21 Id. art. 1(5).

22 Id. art. 6(6).

23 Id. art. 5(2).

24 See, e.g., Denis Džidić, Hague Tribunal Successor ‘Casts Doubt on Region’s Courts’, BIRN (Feb. 14, 2011), available at http://www.bim.ba/en/257/10/31743/.

25 Furthermore, there have been no deferrals of previously referred cases to date to the ICTY. In spite of that, the increasingly large number of war crimes cases that has been successfully processed by the courts in the former Yugoslavia is certain to create some resentment in the region where justice is still in a transitional stage.

1 See Articles 1 to 8 ICTY Statute (S/RES/827 (1993) and Annex to S/25704 and Add.17658 (1993)) and Articles 1 to 7 ICTR Statute (Annex to S/RES/955 (1994)).