Judging the Courts: Domestic Responses to International Criminal Tribunals

When members of the international community create international criminal tribunals they assume that the same institutional design will function uniformly in diverse settings. In addition to justice for victims and reestablishment of the rule of law, the tribunals are expected to contribute to a collective memory or common history for a new future, forge the basis for a democratic political order that protects human rights, and promote reconciliation across social divisions. I however argue that the same set of liberal international institutions can have radically different consequences in different contexts. Based on preliminary evidence, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia (ICTY) have played different roles in the transitions of the societies in question. Although some common attitudes towards the tribunals exist, the meaning of tribunals, and their effects on memory construction, narrative reinvention, and reconciliation vary significantly. I investigate this puzzle by empirically examining the cases of the ICTR and the ICTY. The research objective is to explore the following questions: What is the prevailing meaning of tribunals at domestic levels and its consequences for reconciliation and post-war transformation (among different societal actors)? What is the dialectical interplay between internal (domestic) and external (international) interpretations of tribunals? And how do domestic actors situate themselves in contesting narratives of tribunals and of the past? Thus far, the tribunal debate has mostly been confined to foreign specialists from the legal and academic fields and there is inadequate regard for public opinion at the domestic level, such as those of lower-level officials, academics, journalists, as well as the masses. To mend this I conduct a small-N inquiry which employs a qualitative and ethnographic approach and the method and logic of ‘structured, focused comparison’ in interviews, focus groups, and discourse analyses of newspapers. The project draws from and enters into debates with literatures on idealism and liberal institutionalism, transitional justice and reconciliation, memory and narration, public opinion, and economic reconstruction and development