Hybrid Tribunals as a Viable Transitional Justice Mechanism to Combat Impunity in Post-Conflict Situations

Abstract

Since the end of the 1990s, the international community has increasingly relied on hybrid or mixed tribunals to prosecute international crimes in the aftermath of armed conflict. Hybrid tribunals rely on national laws, judges and prosecutors, contributing to the capacity-building of the local judiciary and the legal system; while also including international standards, personnel, resources, experience and technical knowledge, conferring legitimacy upon them. At the same time, hybrid tribunals pose real problems in their attempt to incorporate different types of law, different levels of expertise and different models of management and funding. The emergence of hybrid tribunals in East Timor, Kosovo, Sierra Leone, and Cambodia, and recent moves in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Burundi are indicative that hybrid tribunals will be central to the development of international criminal law in the coming decades. This article looks at the emergence of hybrid tribunals, analyses their practice and highlights their possible limitations.  

Keywords: Hybrid, tribunals, international, crimes, human, rights, Nuremberg, ICC, prosecution, war crimes

JEL Classification: K00, K1, K10, K14, K19, K2, K20, K3, K33, K42, K41, K40, K49