ABSTRACT
After more than three years of violence the three parties to the violent conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina finally signed the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA) at the end of 1995. UN Security Council resolution 1031 put the United Nations Mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina (UNMIBH) in charge of implementing the civilian parts of the DPA and the resolution also requested NATO to ensure implementation of the military aspects of the peace agreement. Hence, NATO established a multinational peace enforcement mission called the Implementation Force (IFOR). IFOR’s 60,000 international soldiers entered BosniaHerzegovina in December 1995 on a one-year mandate. At this time the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was in its third year and it was finally ready to begin its first trial (President of the ICTY 1996). The Prosecutor was developing numerous indictments but the tribunal was not very successful in securing the detention and transfer of the indicted individuals (ibid.). The ICTY apparently issued the first international arrest warrant to IFOR in December 1995 for the detention of Milan Kovacevic and Simo Drljaca (President of the ICTY 1997). During 1996 the ICTY forwarded a further seven arrest warrants to IFOR (ibid.). In addition the ICTY announced more than 50 other indictments during IFOR’s deployment (ibid.). However, IFOR failed to detain any indicted war criminals during its mission.
