General Assembly Session 52 meeting 44

The President

May I take it that the Assembly takes note of the fourth annual report of the International Tribunal?

The President

I call on Mr. Antonio Cassese, President of the International Tribunal.

Mr. Cassese (International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991)

Mr. President, may I first of all express my deep gratitude for the honour you have shown me by allowing me once again to address the General Assembly on the activities of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

In view of the fact that the first four-year mandate of the Hague Judges is drawing to a close, instead of outlining our activities from 1996 to 1997, I would like to take this opportunity to offer the Assembly an insider's appraisal of our successes and shortcomings since our establishment in 1993. The end of our first mandate also coincides with the end of my second and last term as President of the International Tribunal. I would therefore like to take this opportunity to express my thoughts, concerns and hopes for the future of this extraordinary institution.

To make a dispassionate assessment of our first four years of life, we need to take a step back and remind ourselves of why the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was established in May 1993 and what we were mandated to achieve. This means looking at the vision behind the creation of the Tribunal and the means by which such a vision was to be realized.

In the context of a brutal conflict with violence and atrocities on a scale not seen in Europe since the 1940s, the Security Council clearly had one overriding aim, and this was to contribute to peace in the former Yugoslavia. One of the most significant responses of the United Nations to the war was the establishment of an international judicial mechanism, through which the world community could, first, contribute to peace by dispensing justice to the victims of genocide, murder, torture, rape and other atrocities in the former Yugoslavia; secondly, deter further abuses of humanitarian law by making it clear that today's world will no longer accept impunity for the planners and the perpetrators of these crimes; and thirdly, create a historical record of what occurred during the conflict, thereby preventing historical revisionism which would bury the memory of the victims alongside their corpses.

If we contrast the aims pursued by the Security Council in 1993 with what has been achieved, the picture we find is reasonably satisfactory.

With respect to the first goal of the Security Council, namely the achievement of peace, it is well known that in spite of the Dayton/Paris Agreement, there is today only a fragile peace in the former Yugoslavia. The establishment of the International Tribunal was conceived as an important contributing factor to the process of reconciliation and peace-building. Today nobody would deny that the Hague Tribunal is a fundamental piece of a highly complicated jigsaw puzzle. Today everybody is convinced, both in the countries of the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere, that there will be no real peace without justice. At The Hague, we strive to dispense justice and have made significant progress. Yet, despite what has been achieved in the last four years, it would be entirely premature, inappropriate and even risky for us to speak at this stage of having done justice to the victims of violence in the former Yugoslavia. The enormity of what we are dealing with is, of course, not atoned for simply by holding a few trials; we have much, much more to do before history can fairly assess whether we have adequately rendered justice at The Hague.

The second goal of the Security Council was that, by the application of the rule of law, the International Criminal Tribunal would deter further hostilities. There, one striking failure stands out: the shameful slaughter on a massive scale of civilians following the fall of Srebrenica in July 1995. True, these crimes have been thereafter the subject matter of the first sentencing judgement of our Tribunal and various other proceedings resulting in the issuance of international arrest warrants.

However, although in July 1995 the Tribunal was already functioning as a judicial institution, the murderers, torturers and rapists of Srebrenica had no fear of being made accountable to the Tribunal. We then seemed to be an irrelevant, distant and ineffective body. The lesson here is one I have been stressing in my reports to the Security Council and General Assembly since 1993, namely, that States must cooperate with the Tribunal. Arrests must be made. Assistance must be given to requests from the Tribunal. People must know that genocide, mass rape and other egregious abuses are regarded as the pinnacle of human criminality, and that their own States will arrest them if they are indicted by the International Criminal Tribunal. Our potential to break the cycle of violence is great, but we can only do so with the assistance of States and the organized world community.

With respect to the Security Council's third goal, namely, to establish the truth of what happened, much has been achieved. In the course of prosecutions, much has come into the public domain. The allegations of hideous atrocities which whispered their way around the world through refugees, victims, humanitarian workers and journalists, have passed from accusation and rumour to judicial evidence.

For instance, the Tadic' judgment, rendered by Trial Chamber II of our Tribunal on 7 May 1997, established as a matter of judicial fact what happened in a particular place in the former Yugoslavia, the opstina or municipality of Prijedor, in the dark days of 1992. It has been proved to the satisfaction of the judges of that particular Trial Chamber that certain things occurred in a particular context. That judgment was the first ever judicial condemnation of "ethnic cleansing". Memories fade and become prone to manipulation, buildings crumble, people pass on, but our records and the reams of evidence collated by the Prosecutor of our Tribunal and scrutinized by the trial judges will impede revisionists from denying what happened in the opstina of Prijedor and elsewhere in the former Yugoslavia.

Let me now set out briefly and concretely what we have done in the four years that have passed. We can say with honesty that within the means made available to us, we have achieved considerable success. Beginning from nothing, hundreds of dedicated individuals have worked to create a fully functioning International Criminal Tribunal. When we judges took office on 17 November 1993, the Tribunal had no premises of its own, no staff, no budget, much less a courtroom.

Today, although we have been endowed with only the minimum necessary logistics, the Tribunal at The Hague is a vibrant, fully operational judicial body. Eighteen public indictments against 77 indictees, plus a number of sealed indictments have been issued by the Prosecutor and confirmed by our judges. Twenty indicted individuals, including some leaders, are currently in detention at the United Nations prison at The Hague. One very lengthy trial has been held, plus many other proceedings, and two other trials are under way, with a third to commence within a matter of weeks.

In order to reach this stage, we had to overcome a series of hurdles. Here again, I shall be candid. In 1993, neither the Security Council nor the General Assembly nor we judges at the Tribunal in The Hague could imagine how many obstacles we would face in our path: financial, logistical, legal and, what is more, practical.

The financial and logistical aspects are plain. To establish a functioning international criminal tribunal from scratch requires enormous funding. One has to hire staff from all around the world, recruit investigators and analysts to delineate the areas of investigation, set up a data bank, send teams of investigators into the field, build courtrooms and offices and supply them with all the necessary equipment, build a prison, fund programmes for the protection of victims and witnesses, and so on.

Legally, it bears pointing out that, unlike national jurisdictions which may rely on dozens of codes and hundreds of precedents for guidance, the International Criminal Tribunal must apply, in addition to its Statute, international customary law, which can only be ascertained by consulting widely dispersed international law sources on war crimes and crimes against humanity. In addition, no international code of criminal procedure was available to us and we had to develop one ourselves: we call it Rules of Procedure and Evidence.

In practical terms, as is well known, it has proved extremely difficult to achieve significant State cooperation, in particular by ensuring that States comply with the Tribunal's orders to arrest and deliver indicted persons to our Hague Tribunal. While Croatia and the central authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina have complied, to various degrees, with such Tribunal orders, the two entities comprising Bosnia and Herzegovina -- Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina -- have not done so, nor has the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), thereby flouting the authority of the United Nations.

Thus, we face the same problems today that we have struggled with over the last four years. Our first, most crucial and most urgent problem is the need for more arrests of military and political leaders.

Secondly, the Office of the Prosecutor of our Tribunal should be strengthened. More investigators are needed to undertake the many complex and time-consuming inquiries that are necessary to fulfil the Tribunal's mandate. In order to grasp the urgency of having more prosecutorial staff, one needs only to look at what happens in some countries with regard to national crimes. For example, the Belgian paedophile investigation began in August 1996 with 350 police investigators, criminal analysts and forensic experts engaged on a full-time basis; after 12 months of investigations, 174 personnel remain engaged on the investigation, which is expected to continue until the end of 1998. Moreover, the Oklahoma City bombing case in the United States had 120 investigators or FBI agents participating in the investigation at the bombing site in the initial stages.

By contrast, at present the Office of the Prosecutor at The Hague has a total of 45 investigators and analysts available, to collect evidence concerning hundreds of complex criminal activities perpetrated on a large scale in the former Yugoslavia over more than four years of armed conflict.

Thirdly, while we have only one now available, we need three or four courtrooms if we are to conduct numerous trials with expedition and complete fairness.

Despite the problems besetting our Tribunal at The Hague and the limitations under which we labour, I believe that the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is playing a momentous role in the current international community. When our Tribunal first started working, it was as if we had constructed some novel flying machine, with the international community wondering whether we would ever get it off the ground. The Tribunal has, indeed, been able to take off, in spite of the adverse winds and the numerous storms which have buffeted us.

Let me also insist again on one important feature of the Hague Tribunal. In 1993 the Security Council, with the support of the General Assembly, set an important precedent by creating, for the first time in world history, a truly international and truly impartial criminal court. As everyone knows, the post-Second World War military tribunals at Nuremberg and Tokyo have been haunted by the charge that they were established by the victorious Powers to judge the vanquished. As a great writer once said, "The victor is the master even of truth; he can manipulate truth as he pleases." The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is not open to this charge. Our Prosecutor has investigated and is still striving to investigate all major crimes allegedly perpetrated in the former Yugoslavia, regardless of the political, ethnic or religious group to which the suspect belonged. And we judges have pronounced upon indictments in an absolutely impartial manner, again regardless of the political, national, ethnic or religious affiliations of the alleged culprits. For us, it is indeed obvious that it is the individual culpability or innocence of the indictee that is all important.

I shall add that, in addition to our actual functions, we have also played what I would call a significant symbolic role over the past four years. The Tribunal marks the advent of real justice rather than mere appeasement. It has been said that the human rights doctrine ultimately boils down to the right of victims to demand that their persecutors answer for their misdeeds. If this is so, the Hague Tribunal can be seen as the very embodiment of the human rights doctrine. So far, more than 200 victims have appeared before the judges of the International Tribunal in The Hague almost every day to give evidence of the horrors which were visited upon them. What is even more important, they have told of the people who, they have alleged, committed those abuses.

In 1795 Immanuel Kant, in his famous essay on perpetual peace, wrote that the international community has progressed so far that a violation of law and rights in one place on Earth is felt in all other places. Our work at The Hague is the embodiment of this faith in the international community, and our efforts are founded on the notion of individual accountability at the international level for international crimes that strike at the core of all of us. The horrors of human depravity all over the world, if not dealt with, diminish humanity's notions of right and wrong, of good and evil, and erode faith in mankind. In The Hague, we do not subscribe to the view so aptly referred to by Victor Hugo that if a man is killed in Paris, it is murder; the throats of 50,000 people are cut in the East, and this is a problem. Atrocities, whether perpetrated in Europe, America, Africa or Asia, must be punished. We at The Hague very much hope that the international criminal court will soon be established to cope with the most vicious and inhuman crimes, wherever they are perpetrated.

In concluding, let me turn to the future. We have spent the last four years fighting to build up an international judicial institution worthy of the United Nations. We are now moving to a totally different phase: in the next four years, we will hold a number of important trials with the utmost expedition compatible with the principles of fairness and justice. Over the next four years, the Hague Tribunal will continue to strive, with unshakeable resolve, to render justice in spite of the numerous problems which hamper our effectiveness. In view of these obstacles, which I have touched upon in the course of this speech, I would like to urge all Member States to lend to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia all the support the Tribunal is entitled to receive.

I say to Member States: You have launched a stupendous enterprise, the importance of which probably will only be fully understood and appreciated in the next millennium. You have put an end to the culture of impunity, to the possibility of historical amnesia, and have ruled out the immoral practice of passing laws granting amnesty to all culprits. You have determined that victims have a basic right to see their persecutors brought to justice. This is an enterprise to tame the savage heart of man and to make more gentle life on this planet, an enterprise worthy of a renewed United Nations and worthy of bearing fruit. I ask you to ensure that this extraordinary exercise in international morality and law is fully supported and yield lasting results. I beg you to continue to heed the cries of the victims of barbarity and allow this pioneering dispensation of international criminal justice to become the hallmark of the new international community.

Mr. Wolzfeld (Luxembourg)

I have the honour to speak on behalf of the European Union. The countries of Central and Eastern Europe associated with the European Union -- the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the associated country of Cyprus -- also support this statement.

The European Union would first like to thank the President of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Mr. Antonio Cassese, for his introduction of his fourth annual report. Both through its analysis and the details it provides, the report gives us a clear and complete picture of the activities of the Tribunal between 1 August 1996 and 31 July 1997. We congratulate President Cassese and the Prosecutor and officers of the Tribunal on the important work they have accomplished. The European Union would also like to express its appreciation for the major contribution that the Netherlands, as host country, makes to the Tribunal's activities.

In its almost four years' existence, the Tribunal has made important progress. Under Security Council resolution 827 (1993), the international community established jurisdictional mechanisms to put an end to the situation of impunity enjoyed by too many perpetrators of serious crimes, breaches of international law committed during the years of conflict in the former Yugoslavia. The proper functioning of the Tribunal is crucial for the full implementation of the peace accords in the former Yugoslavia.

The European Union reaffirms that in order to do its job impartially the International Tribunal must be totally independent of any political authorities. The European Union will therefore refrain from commenting on cases now before the Tribunal. However, we would like to stress the need for unstinting cooperation by all States and all parties with the International Tribunal, to enable it to perform its duties satisfactorily.

The normalization of relations in the territory of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia requires that a new atmosphere of confidence and security be established among the parties. The European Union believes that confidence and security will only be possible if there is respect for the primacy of law. The legal obligation to cooperate with the Tribunal is mentioned in article 29 of its statute. The handing over or transfer of indictees for whom arrest warrants have been issued is essential in order to assure the Tribunal's proper functioning and credibility. The European Union believes that the international community must see to it that article 29 of the statute is fully implemented. Over and above legal considerations, it is the moral responsibility of the international community to see to it that the perpetrators of atrocities do not go unpunished and that justice is not denied to the victims of such crimes.

As President Cassese mentioned in his report, the Tribunal has made important progress with the resources available to it. However, it continues to be obstructed by certain States and entities of the former Yugoslavia that refuse to cooperate. There the European Union fully shares the views of Mr. Cassese. Whereas Croatia and the central authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina have complied, to varying degrees, with the Tribunal's orders, the two entities that make up Bosnia and Herzegovina -- the Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has not, thus defying the authority of the United Nations. The impunity enjoyed in the former Yugoslavia by a large number of indictees is unacceptable.

Nothing can justify the non-execution of arrest warrants. It is essential that States adopt the necessary legislative, administrative and judicial measures to ensure the speedy execution of the orders issued by the Tribunal. Although many States have promulgated enforcement legislation to discharge their responsibilities, the European Union continues to be concerned that, generally speaking, the situation is unsatisfactory.

Moreover, the European Union reaffirms that it is imperative to give proper financial support and to ensure effective personnel management in the Tribunal. The European Union welcomes the decision of the General Assembly to request the Secretary-General to submit in his programme budget for 1998 recommendations to enable the International Tribunal to complete its job as soon as possible. This budget is now being considered by the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, and we hope that very soon it will be taken up by the Fifth Committee. The European Union encourages all States to help ensure that consideration of the Tribunal's budget is speedily concluded.

The European Union and its member States will continue to make voluntary contributions to help the Tribunal's work; it will provide full support for its smooth functioning. To that end, a cooperative relationship with the various republics is contingent upon their compliance with the peace accords and their cooperation with the International Tribunal.

The European Union believes that the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is an important precedent for the establishment of an international criminal court. The work and experience of the Tribunal will provide a valuable source for the establishment of rules making it possible to prosecute and punish, at the international level, serious violations of humanitarian law, no matter where or by whom those crimes were committed.

Almost four years after its establishment, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia is a fully operational judicial body. On the whole, it has been an outstanding success, thanks to all those who have committed themselves to the cause of justice. The European Union and its member States will continue to give full support to the Tribunal, and request that other Member States do likewise. For peace to triumph, justice must prevail.

Mr. Berteling (Netherlands)

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