Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 10/2010

Hybrid Tribunals and the Rule of Law: Notes from Bosnia and Herzegovina and Cambodia

Olga Martin-­‐Ortega, Johanna Herman

May 2010

Centre on Human Rights in Conflict

Abstract

Following the establishment of the international ad hoc tribunals, the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda (ICTY and ICTR respectively), a new model of justice administration emerged at the end of the 1990s through the development of hybrid or internationalised courts. Hybrid tribunals are conceived as a mixture of international and domestic law and staff, as a way to provide the necessary resources and guarantees for justice closer to those whose work matters to most. They have different compositions and legal frameworks depending on the context of the country. The first ones were established in Kosovo, Timor Leste and Sierra Leone These first hybrid mechanisms were seen as a new experiment for international justice.