Dealing with Witnesses in War Crime Trials: Lessons from the Yugoslav Tribunal

Convictions, if they are to be legitimate, must be based on credible evidence presented in a public trial. The conflict between the right of an accused to a public trial and the exceptional pressures on victim witnesses of war crimes is omnipresent in ICTY trials. Recently, the ICTY has begun to favor witness protection. These overly liberal grants of witness protection measures, including heavy reliance on affidavits over live testimony, closed sessions, face and voice distortion, and even pseudonyms, threaten the goals of the Tribunal - to provide accurate historical records of terrible events and fair treatment of accused war criminals.