Do International Criminal Courts Actually Deter War Crimes? |Interview with Jacqueline McAllister

Global Dispatches -- World News That Matters

I encountered a study in the journal, International Security by Dr. Jacqueline McAllister that examines whether or not international war crimes tribunals actually deter and prevent war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Jacqueline McAllister is an assistant professor of political science at Kenyon College. Her article, titled "Deterring Wartime Atrocities: Hard Lessons from the Yugoslav Tribunal" examines whether or not the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, known as the ICTY, was able to deter war crimes during the wars in the Balkans in the 1990s.

She finds that, indeed, there were some circumstances in which the ICTY deterred war crimes--but for that to happen, the conditions have to be just right. We discuss what those conditions are, how she arrived at her findings, and what implications her study has for other war crimes tribunals, like the International Criminal Court.

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