Linguistic Justice at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

Book excerpt: The first of its kind, this book treats language justice in the realm of the international criminal law, focusing specifically on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Defining linguistic justice to mean whether the parties to the proceedings have been addressed by the ICTY in their own language, this study explores the conditions for the delivery of linguistic justice in a context where language plays a key role in the conflict. After presenting a very brief history of language quarrels in the former Yugoslavia and pointing to a series of examples where the language, and underlying ethnic and national identities, have been used as a tool for a conflict, the book reviews ICTY language laws, language-related case law, and procedural linguistic equality of arms between the ICTY Prosecution and Defense to set the stage for language-related work that had to be carried out by the ICTY’s language services providers. After reviewing the history, the recruitment, professional criteria and standards, and training of all ICTY language professionals, this book explores whether linguistic justice has been served by showing overall outputs in translation and interpretation, overall ethnicity- and nationality-based language service delivery, and translation of the permanent court record. It shows that there is much more to provision of language services at international criminal tribunals adjudicating on ethnically motivated war crimes than traditionally thought, and questions whether any of it make any sense as things stand.