violations [Palmer and Posa 363]. Eventually, in 1994-95, this led to intervention by the international community, under a framework established by the Dayton Accords. The remainder of this discussion concentrates on the legal framework established by Dayton, and the challenges facing human rights law in an environment of ongoing conflict and tension.
The Dayton Accords established two new international courts to deal with human rights violations resulting from the Bosnian civil war: the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Tribunal was to prosecute suspects accused of "violations of international humanitarian law" [Palmer and Posa 362]. The Chamber was to protect Bosnians from governmental misconduct after the peace accord was signed. These courts were established on recommendation of Cyrus Vance and Lord David Owen, who co-chaired the international conference [Owen 2].
These two courts, and the war crimes court in Rwanda, are the only international courts established to deal with war crimes since the trials that followed World War II [Ramanathan 1]. In 1998, the chief prosecutor of the Tribunal, Louise Arbour, also claimed jurisdiction over war crimes committed in Kosovo [Internal Armed Conflict 69].
The Bosnia courts differed from Nuremberg and other post-World War II courts in that they are ongoing bodies, rather than one-time events. The reason û and the complication û is that the political situation in Bosnia was not absolutely and decisively resolved. After World War II, the Allies had total control over Germany and Japan. In contrast, international control over Bosnia was limited, and some war crimes suspects were able to move around openly, defying arrest.
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