ICTY Celebrities: War Criminals Coming Home

Almost 25 years ago, the United Nations (UN) Security Council passed the Resolution 827 establishing the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the first ad hoc international criminal court set up by the UN since the post–World War II Nuremberg and Tokyo tribunals. The Tribunal was created to prosecute persons responsible for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide committed at the territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991. Over its life span, the Tribunal indicted 161 individuals for their involvement in atrocities committed during the wars of Yugoslav secession. It held trials against 113 individuals over the course of 10.500 trial days hearing testimonies over 4,600 witnesses. Ninety defendants were convicted, 19 acquitted, 2 are currently being retried at the Mechanism for the International Criminal Tribunals, and 2 died before they could hear their final judgment. All this judicial activity indisputably left behind a significant judicial and forensic legacy. The ICTY contributed to the revival and consolidation of international criminal law and its doctrine and gathered a large repository of documents and testimonies about the past.