ABSTRACT
The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) were given political tasks by their founder, the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). UNSC resolution only reiterated the criteria already in the statute, according to which the gravity of the crimes and the level of responsibility should determine which case to pursue and which to drop. The relevant UNSC resolutions required the ICTY to contribute to the restoration and maintenance of peace and the ICTR to contribute to national reconciliation in Rwanda. This chapter establishes whether the use of restorative approaches to justice would have had a better chance of contributing to reconciliation in the Yugoslavia and Rwanda than the punitive, retributive one both tribunals actually chose. It assesses when and how retributive justice has the potential to deter would-be perpetrators from committing crimes. The chapter examines the circumstances that existed in the cases of the ICTR and the ICTY.
