Transitional justice in practice: the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and beyond

Abstract

This paper reviews the critical debates of the transitional justice mechanisms employed in the former Yugoslavia. It summarizes the various positions, showing the present divergences and consensus. Given the fact that the ICTY is the dominant transitional justice mechanism in the former Yugoslavia, the paper gives particular emphasis in the literature on the Tribunal and places the ICTY in the much broader field of transitional justice and to some extent relates it to the rest of the instruments present in the region. In that context, the discussion focuses on some of the issues, problems, dilemmas and effects that the implementation of the ICTY presents.