The Witnesses: War Crimes and the Promise of Justice in The Hague

Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights

by Eric Stover

In recent years, the world community has demonstrated a renewed commitment to the pursuit of international criminal justice. In 1993, the United Nations established two ad hoc international tribunals to try those responsible for genocide and crimes against humanity in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Ten years later, the International Criminal Court began its operations and is developing prosecutions in its first two cases (Congo and Uganda). Meanwhile, national and hybrid war crimes tribunals have been established in Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, East Timor, Indonesia, Iraq, and Cambodia.

Thousands of people have given testimony before these courts. Most have witnessed war crimes, including mass killings, torture, rape, inhumane imprisonment, forced expulsion, and the destruction of homes and villages. For many, testifying in a war crimes trial requires great courage, especially as they are well aware that war criminals still walk the streets of their villages and towns. Yet despite these risks, little attention has been paid to the fate of witnesses of mass atrocity. Nor do we know much about their experiences testifying before an international tribunal or the effect of such testimony on their return to their postwar communities. The first study of victims and witnesses who have testified before an international war crimes tribunal, The Witnesses examines the opinions and attitudes of eighty-seven individuals—Bosnians, Muslims, Serbs, and Croats—who have appeared before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.

248 pages, Paperback

First published August 25, 2005

About the author

Eric Stover is Faculty Director of the Human Rights Center and Adjunct Professor of Law and Public Health, University of California at Berkeley.

Stover has built the Human Rights Center into a premier interdisciplinary research and policy center that is highly regarded nationally and internationally. He is a pioneer in utilizing empirical research methods to address emerging issues in human rights and international humanitarian law.

Before coming to Berkeley in 1996, Stover served as the Executive Director of Physicians for Human Rights and the Director of the Science and Human Rights Program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has served on several forensic missions to investigate mass graves as an “Expert on Mission” to the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. In the early 1990s, Stover conducted the first research on the social and medical consequences of land mines in Cambodia and other post-war countries. His research helped launch the International Campaign to Ban Land Mines, which received the Nobel Prize in 1997. He has published six books, including The Witnesses: War Crimes and the Promises of Justice in The Hague and The Breaking of Bodies and Minds: Torture, Psychiatric Abuse, and the Health Professions. He is a member of the editorial boards of the International Journal of Transitional Justice and Human Rights Quarterly and a board member of the Crimes of War Project.

Reviews

[Vaida Nikšaitė]

Apie tarptautautinę baudžiamąją teisę ir mažiausiai dėmesio mokslinėje literatūroje ir medijose sulaukiantį jos veikėją - liudininką. Puikus amerikietiško akademinio story telling stiliaus pavyzdys: aiškiai ir suprantamai apie sudėtingus dalykus (prancūzakalbėje tradicijoje, kaip žinia, viskas būtų atvirkščiai: sudėtingai ir painiai apie paprastus dalykus). Žodžiu, puikus skaitinys teisės profanams.

[Aimee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!