The Former “Yugoslavia Tribunal” as Monument of Justice
History, Heritage and Memory of the ICTY and IRMCT in the City of Peace and Justice
9789048572014
290 pages
Amsterdam University Press
Overview
After Nuremberg, there is probably no other place where the future of Europe has been so definitively tested and safeguarded as in The Hague. The iconic building of the former International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has become a global symbol of international law and transitional justice since its establishment in 1993. As the direct successor to the International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg in 1945-1946, this UN tribunal concluded 25 years of unprecedented success in investigating and trying all major war crimes suspects from the wars in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. It also made history through the first application of the UN Genocide Convention in the trial of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. This report addresses the question of how the significance of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, as a heritage and memorial site for its many (inter)national stakeholders, can be preserved following the withdrawal of the UN and a possible redevelopment of the site.
Author Bio
Rob van der Laarse works as a historian and a scholar of cultural studies, specializing in (early) modern Dutch political and European cultural history as well as contemporary war and conflict heritage. He was the founder of the heritage and memory studies programme and research school at the University of Amsterdam and previously held the shared Westerbork chair at the UvA and VU Amsterdam.
Charles Jeurgens formerly worked as municipal archivist (Schiedam, Dordrecht) and as professor of archivistics at Leiden University and at the Nationaal Archief. He currently works at the University of Amsterdam as an archival scholar in archival and information studies with a special interest in in practices of recordkeeping by former Dutch colonial authorities and agencies, and mechanisms of collecting, bias and silences.
Sabina Tanovi. is an architect and researcher focused on memorial projects dealing with traumatic pasts. Sabina graduated from the Faculty of Architecture, the University of Sarajevo, and holds a master’s and doctoral degree from Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands, where she also teaches. Her current research looks into the construction of contemporary memorials that are informed by participatory and grassroot approaches, environmental psychology and processes of bereavement.
