•  
  •  
 

Abstract

Mass-atrocity crimes present unique accountability challenges, challenges that are often exacerbated by the social and political conditions that facilitated the commitment of the crimes in the first place. International accountability mechanisms were developed to address these obstacles by providing a means of holding individuals accountable for international crimes when their host states were incapable of doing so or unwilling to do so. The first iteration of these tribunals, the international military tribunals, gained prominence following World War II, and a second-generation of non-military international tribunals were created in response to the mass atrocities committed in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. A third generation-hybrid international tribunals-began to emerge in the 2000s as a means of addressing the shortcomings of the purely international tribunals that had preceded them.

This Comment explores the benefits and drawbacks that are inherent in hybrid international tribunals; specifically, the issues of legitimacy that are prevalent in judicial cultures that suffer from rule of law deficiencies, and the promises of what I have termed "aspirationacl apacity building."A spirational capacity building refers to the idea that post-conflict states, whose judicial systems have been weakened by conflict, may rebuild their judicial capacities through interactions with hybrid international tribunals. These benefits are meant to be accrued merely by exposure to international actors and institutions, hence the term "aspirational." This Comment argues that requiring certain rule-of-law initiatives in a hybrid-tribunals constitutive agreement-moving from aspirational to prescriptive capacity building-would have the twofold benefit of ameliorating legitimacy issues and improving the host-state's judicial culture

Download

Included in

Criminal Law Commons

Share

COinS