The war crimes trial gimmick

Radovan Karadzic supporters drink and play gusle, a traditional instrument, in a bar in New Belgrade, Serbia, yesterday. Photographs: Amel Emric, Srdjan Ilic/AP.

Former Bosnian Serb leader, Radovan Karadzic, brought proceedings in the Hague to a standstill yesterday. He decided not to attend the opening of his genocide trial, claiming that he was unprepared. Karadzic is representing himself and the trial couldn’t go on without defence counsel. Big anticlimax.

But maybe that’s the problem. These big war crime trials bear a striking resemblance to what I can only imagine medieval public executions looked like. I’m not sure how much they have to do with justice as opposed to public retribution. It’s as though the ‘international community’ needs to demonstrate, as visually as possible, that ‘international justice’ really exists and really works, and that - to quote a former US president who had a way with words - ‘evildoers’ really get their comeuppance in the end. I’m not sure.

I don’t like Karadzic and what he represents. I think the people responsible for acts like Srebrenica make an incredibly strong case for capital punishment. At the very least, they should be tried quickly and if found guilty, locked away somewhere for good. But I also think that the likes of Karadzic, Slobodan Miloševic before him, and Saddam Hussein are right when they say that these genocide trials are gimmicky public spectacles rather than genuine attempts at delivering justice. Were justice the real aim, Karadzic apprehension would not have been the result of a political settlement nor would the massacre of thousands be attributed to just a handful of suitable villains. Also, assuming that justice is blind, the criteria for who counts as a war criminal would be less selective and less dependent on political considerations.

Still, Case No. IT-95-5/18-PT will eventually get underway. If he doesn’t inconveniently die during the process (like Milosevic), Karadzic will almost certainly be found guilty of something serious - crimes against humanity, violations of the laws of war, something. Some will celebrate the decision as a mark of progress. Others will hold their former leader up as a martyr. The news cycle will roll on. But I’m not sure very much substantive justice will have been done.

Maybe this is why the African Union don’t want the International Criminal Court getting involved with the situation in Sudan or Uganda.