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- Title
‘The Milošević Trial — Live!’.
- Authors
Steinitz, Maya
- Abstract
It has been argued that in order for a normative system to qualify as ‘law’, it must, at the least, claim to possess legitimate authority and to be supreme to other normative systems. This article examines one highly visible development in international law — the criminal war trials — from a sociological perspective, trying to discern whether and how international law claims legitimate authority and supremacy. Specifically, it focuses on a deeply symbolic example of international criminal adjudication: the Milošević trial — a ‘transitional justice’ trial in that it is a trial held after a conflict that has deeply disrupted the relevant community. The article offers a sociological reading of the symbolism of the interpersonal dynamics of the Milošević trial and concludes that what is in fact attempted, and perhaps achieved, through internationalizing the transitional-justice trials is the internationalization of the transition process itself. The subject of the transition from an illiberal and illegitimate regime to a liberal and legitimate one is not in fact the former Yugoslavia, but the ‘international community’ itself. The rule of law that the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia seeks to vindicate is not only law as such, and not necessarily the law of the former Yugoslavia, but the rule of international law.
- Subjects
YUGOSLAVIA; INTERNATIONAL law; CRIMINAL procedure (International law); RULE of law; JUDICIAL supremacy; LEGAL authorities; CRIMINAL trials; TRANSITIONAL justice; INTERNATIONAL Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991
- Publication
Journal of International Criminal Justice, 2005, Vol 3, Issue 1, p103
- ISSN
1478-1387
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/jicj/mqi003