In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • The Witnesses: War Crimes and the Promise of Justice in The Hague
  • Richard Mollica (bio)
Eric Stover’s The Witnesses: War Crimes and the Promise of Justice in The Hague, Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 2005

Eric Stover tells a good human rights story. In this book he gives us an in-depth analysis of the mission and functioning of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). This court is one of the great new modern experiments in bringing war criminals to justice. By the end of its term it will have brought approximately one hundred cases to trial at a total cost of 1.5 billion dollars. As Eric Stover states, “Little, if anything, is known about the experiences of victims and witnesses who have testified before international war tribunals.” So he has chosen and interviewed eighty-seven witnesses who had testified at the ICTY to help us understand the experience, thoughts, and feelings of witnesses as they passed through the judicial process.

In his introduction he states three objectives for his research and book (1) to probe the “meaning” the witnesses of war crimes derive from testifying before an international tribunal; (2) to provide judges, lawyers, and other staff members at the Hague tribunal with insights into the process of “bearing witness before a tribunal”; and (3) to shift the debate away from the theoretical benefits of ICTY-style justice to the real-life benefits of justice as experienced directly by witnesses after their testimony at The Hague.

Eric Stover’s narrative evidence provides a very damning account of the way witnesses were treated every step of the way, from pretrial preparation; to testimony and support during the trial; to follow-up after their return home, including protection from local harassment resulting from their testimony in The Hague. The failure of the ICTY to protect witnesses is dramatically illustrated in the case of a forty-six-year-old [End Page 306] Croatian officer who was killed when a hand grenade exploded in a car he was repairing in his hometown. Two years earlier he had been a witness at the ICTY. The ICTY had promised him that the Croatian government would protect him; this promise was never fulfilled. The witness accounts in this book are filled with examples of insensitive treatment during the trial, feelings of abandonment once the witnesses returned home, prosecution lawyers failing to get close to or support witnesses in order to avoid the appearance of witness tampering, and an almost total lack of regard for the well-being of the witnesses once their duties were fulfilled and they left The Hague.

In spite of these perceived court failures, most of the witnesses interviewed by Stover were still adamant that all suspected war criminals in the former Yugoslavia, regardless of their ethnicity, should be arrested and tried for their alleged crimes. Witnesses in general felt that “the truth had to come out,” and that a forum should exist where their suffering could be heard or acknowledged. Some witnesses felt that trials provided the benefit of removing war criminals from their communities; many believed that convictions and arrests had the potential of deterring criminals from continuing their illegal actions. Some witnesses also hoped that the trials would educate the following generation about the rules of law and prevent further human rights violations and atrocities.

The Witnesses reveals the enormous gap between the expectations and experiences of witnesses in regard to the concept of justice, and the understandings of those in The Hague legally seeking the pursuit of justice. How can this divide between the two sides be adequately explained? Is it primarily the result of a young and naive international justice system stumbling along on best intentions, making many mistakes with witnesses along the way? Certainly, it is inconceivable that a legal system that will spend $1.5 billion on a hundred cases—or approximately 15 million dollars a case—does not have enough resources to adequately address the witness issues raised in this book.

Eric Stover missed the opportunity to conduct a scientific study of...

pdf

Share