On October 5th 2018, the Giuseppe Torre Award Jury assigned the prizes for critical essays on the Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY).
After an extensive discussion the Jury unanimously decided not to award the first prize and to assign an ex aequo second prize to
“ICTY and Srebrenica” by Stefan Karganović
and to
“When justice fails: Re-raising the Question of Ethnic Bias at the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)” by Jovan Milojevich.
The decision to award a second prize of 3000 euros for each winner was motivated by the extremely sectorial character of both papers.
Stefan Karganovic’s “ICTY and Srebrenica” develops tight and well-argued criticism on the ways the ICTY assumed and evaluated the testimonial evidences and documents with reference to some episodes of the serious controversial events of Srebrenica. The author considers the methods followed by the court not corresponding to the standard of a fair trial in the rule of law. These methods are definitely based on a prejudicial political approach with serious consequences on various aspects of the court decisions, even in the attribution of criminal responsibility to subjects other than the alleged or alleged perpetrators of alleged crime. Very sensitive is the topic on inadequate evidences in the attribution of genocidal intent (dolus specialis) of some ICTY decisions in the field examined by the author.
Jovan Milojevich’s “When justice fails: Re-raising the Question of Ethnic Bias at the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY)” constitutes an interesting and well-elaborated examination of the anti-Serb and secondly anti-Bosnian Croat prejudice in the decision of the ICTY related to the nationality of the convicted or of the victims of the alleged crimes. The essay is based on appropriate statistical tables and on arguments finely carried out and supported by the explicit belief that such outcomes corresponded to a prejudicial political attitude aiming to prove Serbs were the aggressors in the Yugoslav affair.
As for the essay “On the Poverty, Rise and Demise of International Criminal Law”, presented by Tiphaine Dickson, the jury believes it does not fall within the theme of the Award announcement. Her text is very interesting though from a general point of view in the framework of international criminal law. Therefore the jury proposes its publication.
The Jury Commission:
Aldo Bernardini
Jean Toschi Marazzani Visconti
Chiara Vitucci