By: Richard A. Goldstone, Former Justice, Constitutional Court of South Africa, First Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia, and Regular Columnist, International Judicial Monitor Monitor
During the first week of September 2015 present and former
international chief prosecutors gathered at Lake Chautauqua, in upstate New
York, for the ninth annual International Humanitarian Law Dialogs. As in former
years the Dialogs were generously hosted at the Chautauqua Institution. We
again enjoyed the camaraderie and friendship that has been a hallmark of these
meetings. The prosecutors were joined by leading humanitarian law scholars from
the United States and abroad. There were too many sponsors to name them all.
They included the Robert H. Jackson Center, the American Society of
International Law, the International Bar Association, the American Bar
Association and a number of leading United States law schools.
This year’s proceedings marked the seventieth anniversary of the
opening of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and the 20th
anniversary of the genocide committed at Srebrenica by troops under the command
of Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic. They are both presently on trial in The
Hague before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. The
participants also recognised the imminent closure of the International Criminal
Tribunal for Rwanda that has now completed its mandate. They recognised the
contribution that that tribunal has made to the development of International
Humanitarian Law and to promoting peace, reconciliation and accountability for
crimes committed in Rwanda. As the first Chief Prosecutor of that tribunal, I
would add my admiration for the important cooperation that was forthcoming from
the government of Rwanda. In that regard it should be recalled that the
Government of Rwanda had opposed the establishment of the tribunal by the Security
Council. That in no way inhibited the government from assisting the Office of
the Prosecutor.
During the proceedings at Chautauqua the participants were acutely
aware of the contribution that international criminal courts have made during
the past twenty years to the development of international criminal law. For too
long there had been no courts with jurisdiction to bring even the most
egregious war criminals to justice. In consequence, international humanitarian
law was hardly ever implemented. For too long there had been effective impunity
for the most atrocious criminals.
However, there was no room for complacency in the Chautauqua
discussions. In the unanimous statement that was issued by the prosecutors at
the end off the