Pursuing Justice in the Midst of War: The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Abstract The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was the first international war crimes tribunal since Nuremberg and the first to start proceedings before the war had ended. This paper examines the challenges of pursuing a peace agreement while war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide are being investigated and prosecuted. The question of the impact of international war crimes tribunals on peace efforts is increasingly important with the advent of a permanent International Criminal Court whose cases to date are all active conflict situations. Drawing on interviews with key actors during the war in Bosnia, this paper presents the perspective of mediators, the ICTY prosecution, and parties to the conflict in examining whether the pursuit of justice during the Bosnian war impeded the pursuit of peace.