international criminal tribunal for the former yugoslavia

Most of the papers published on the subject focused on natural and methodological limits of the investigations respectively due to the degraded state of the corpses, the lack of means on the spot and the lack of standardization between the different teams involved ( Skinner et al., 20, Schäfer, 2000, Sprogoe-Jakobsen et al., 2001) or they have focused on identification methods or procedures ( Vanezis, 1997, Cordner and McKelvie, 2002, Rainio, Lalu et al., 2001, Chandrasiri, 1997).

Perpretated war crimes in the former Yugoslavia and Kosovo since 1991 have been subjected to several international medico-legal investigations of mass graves within the framework of inquiries led by the ICTY. Alternatives to international justice through a truth and reconciliation commission and by the way of humanitarian mission of victims’ identification combined with forensic investigations for historical purposes could be considered. As medical deontology duty requires an impartiality ethics, discursive ethics are needed to ease ethical tensions and to suggest ethical guidelines. In the second, he or she needs to conduct himself in ways that do not infringe impartiality. In the first, the forensic pathologist completely agrees with the need for an international war crime tribunal even if such justice can be challenged regarding the respect of human rights and impartiality. Two conflicting types of ethics can be drawn from these results: a conviction ethics which is shared by most of the forensic pathologists questioned and a responsibility ethics. Fifteen considered that the ICTY respected the elementary rules of the law and four of them questioned the impartiality of the justice led by the ICTY. Three of them were aware of mass grave sites wittingly not investigated by the ICTY. Three of them have been subjected to pressures. The majority of the forensic pathologists questioned (n=18) did not know how the medico-legal data were exploited by the ICTY. In order to study the nature of such ethical tensions, we sent a questionnaire to 65 forensic pathologists who have been involved in the ICTY missions.

Forensic pathologists involved in the ICTY missions could be subjected to ethical tensions due to the difficulties of the missions, the emergent conflicts between forensic scientists of the teams and the original nature of the ICTY proceedings. War crimes in the former Yugoslavia since 1991 have been subjected to several international medico-legal investigations of mass graves within the framework of inquiries led by the ICTY.

International criminal tribunal for the former yugoslavia