ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts of the concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book explores two important, aspects: One is to explore whether the international criminal tribunals (ICTs) could have avoided the pitfalls given their resources and operational circumstances. The other is to provide hints for the work of any future ad hoc tribunals, as well as for the International Criminal Court, which will need to face many of the difficulties encountered by the ad hoc tribunals, and avoid repeating the mistakes of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The book argues that the political side to ICT is both natural and inevitable, that such tribunals are not merely judicial but also diplomatic or para-diplomatic institutions and, crucially, that this is a practical necessity: no international criminal tribunal could realistically even exist without cultivating this particular political, and thus automatically partial, aspect.
