ICTY
Definition
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Established by UN Security Council Resolution 827 in 1993; the first international tribunal since Nuremberg to commission and rely on mass grave forensic evidence in criminal proceedings.
- Full name
- International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
- Established
- 1993, by UN Security Council Resolution 827
- Significance
- First international tribunal since Nuremberg using mass grave forensics
- Evidence type
- Excavation and forensic anthropology reports
Common questions
Why was mass grave forensic evidence significant for ICTY prosecutions?+
Exhumation data on victim numbers, cause of death, and grave disturbance patterns corroborated witness accounts and helped establish command responsibility for killings, giving prosecutors physical evidence independent of testimony that could be challenged as unreliable.
Did ICTY set procedural standards other tribunals later followed?+
Yes, its recovery and documentation protocols for mass graves became a reference point for subsequent tribunals and missing-persons programmes handling conflict-related exhumations.
Related terms
- DVI Chain
- Disaster Victim Identification chain: the linked sequence of ante-mortem data collection, post-mortem examination, and reconciliation comparison that produces a verified identification. Originally...
- EAAF
- The Equipo Argentino de Antropologia Forense (Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team), founded in 1984 to investigate disappearances during the military dictatorship. Widely regarded...
- ICMP
- International Commission on Missing Persons. Intergovernmental body established 1996; operates the world's largest DNA-based identification programme for missing persons from conflict and...
- Minnesota Protocol
- The UN Manual on the Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-Legal Executions (1991, updated 2016). The normative baseline for forensic investigation of...
- Rule 94Bis
- The ICTY procedural rule governing expert witness evidence. Required that expert reports be disclosed in advance, that the opposing party could challenge...