Views on the Ground: The Local Perception of International Criminal Tribunals in the Former Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone

• DOI: 10.1177/0002716205281443
• Author: Donna E. Arzt
• Published date: 01 January 2006
• Date: 01 January 2006
• Subject Matter: Articles

10.1177/0002716205281443THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYVIEWS ON THE GROUND January603

If international criminal courts are to achieve their

aims—one of which is to contribute to the consolidation

of democracy and the triumph of the rule of law over the

instinct for revenge after prolonged periods of commu-

nal violence—perception of their legitimacy by the local

population is a crucial factor. After laying out and com-

paring the basic features of the International Criminal

Tribunalfor the former Yugoslavia and the Special Court

for Sierra Leone as to their respective origins, objectives,

and programs of outreach, the article examines local

reception from three standpoints: perceptions of overall

legitimacy, perceptions of tribunal impartiality, and the

effect of public perceptions of the tribunals on the re-

spective countries’ reconciliation process.

Keywords: international criminal tribunals; war

crimes; Yugoslavia; Sierra Leone

Since 1993, a revolution in public interna-

tional law has taken place through the cre-

ation of seven international criminal tribunals to

prosecute war criminals.1It had taken forty-

eight years since the Nuremberg and Tokyo tri-

bunals were in operation for the international

community to begin creating new institutions to

hold individuals criminally responsible for war-

time atrocities committed by them or under

their command. The area of law that the tri-

bunals apply, known as international criminal

law, has grown from the domain of a handful of

scholars2during the cold war era to a vast liter-

ature, along with an exponentially expanding

jurisprudence, today.

226 ANNALS, AAPSS, 603, January 2006

Donna E. Arzt is Dean’sDistinguished Research Scholar

at Syracuse University College of Law.In her capacity as

director of the school’s Center for Global Lawand Prac-

tice, she codirects the Sierra Leone Project, a team of stu-

dents and faculty that prepares research memos at the

request of the Office of the Prosecutor (OTP) of the Spe-

cial Court for Sierra Leone. She worked for the OTP in

Freetown, Sierra Leone, during the summer of2003, and

among other courses in the field of public international

law, she teaches a seminar in international criminal law.

Research assistance for this article was provided in part

by Syracuse law students Jennifer Nash Liu and Alan

Pereira.

DOI: 10.1177/0002716205281443

Views on

the Ground:

The Local

Perception of

International

Criminal

Tribunals in

the Former

Yugoslavia and

Sierra Leone

By

DONNA E. ARZT