The Implications of the Peace Agreement for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

Abstract

The Peace Agreement signed in Paris on 14 December 1995' and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (the Tribunal), share a common purpose: the restoration of peace in the former Yugoslavia.2 The former aims to be a ..comprehensive settlement3 to the conflict in the region, addressing such diverse issues as demilitarizat ion, elections, constitutional arrangements and human rights, and the latter is incorporated in its provisions as one aspect of that settlement. The Tribunal does not, however, loom large in the Peace Agreement. It is not, for example, explicitly mentioned in the General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina - the basic text of the Agreement - but only in the Annexes attached thereto. Several articles in the Annexes do refer specifically to the Tribunal, reaffirming the Parties' duty to co-operate with it and to comply with its orders. This is significant, not least because it is the first occasion since the London Agreement4 which established the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg that a treaty has endorsed an international tribunal to try crimes against humanity and war crimes.5 Nevertheless the Peace Agreement's marginalisation of the Tribunal is