Antonio Cassese was the first president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and is now head of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL). He just announced that he will visit Lebanon in the coming weeks to complete the investigation into the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri.

He spoke to the IJT’s Sebastiaan Gottlieb.

Can you tell us anything about the progress of the STL?
We have a limited staff but we are able to work hard and produce quite a few things. We have not yet any case, as you know, and will have a trial only probably in early 2011. Meanwhile we are preparing all the practical and legal infrastructures, so that as soon as we have a case, we can proceed very expeditiously and we will not waste money or time.

Do we still need ad hoc tribunals like the STL now that the ICC has opened?
Yes, because there are cases where a country wants to get involved in trials. Say Lebanon, Sierra Leone: they say we don’t have the facilities or the necessary judiciary to bring to trial people who have committed horrendous crimes. We want an international tribunal to be established but we want to be part of that tribunal, so possibly the tribunal should be headquartered on our territory. Therefore there may be a situation where, in spite of the importance of the ICC, it would be important to set up a tribunal, which is tailor-made to a particular situation in a particular country.

What have been the benefits of the modern international criminal justice system?
The basic problem is the protection of human dignity, which may sound like an empty slogan but it’s a reality. The existence of international criminal tribunals shows that the international community is given the right to respond to so many crimes committed in the world, namely a response that is not based on revenge, on simply execution or punishment, but on a proper trial. That is what the Americans rightly suggested in 1945 when the British were reluctant to set up a tribunal in Nuremberg and thought it would be sufficient to execute some 10,000 senior German officers, and the Americans rightly said the proper response is to put them on trial to see who is guilty, who is innocent and then to sentence the guilty people.

Are there any developments in international law that concern you?
I think sovereignty is the real stumbling block of real progress in the international community. States should gradually open up to international relations and implement international legal standards. I fear that unilateralism, too much emphasis on sovereign interests of states, and the protection of national interest, may in a way undermine the spread of universal values in the international community.

What are the most positive developments in international law?
The human rights doctrine, the emergence of this core of fundamental values that has universal scope. Also I think that in a way we should not underestimate the positive effect of what is now regarded by so many people as a negative development, namely the globalisation of the international community. Probably sooner or later sharing global interests will push states to set up true international institutions that are there only to protect collective values and this would be a very healthy development.

What do you make of the recent developments in the Karadzic trial?
I think that it would have been better from the outset to appoint a legal counsel for Karadzic. In many European countries, in criminal cases any defendant must be assisted by a defence counsel. This is a huge, extremely complex case where [Karadzic] is accused of tremendous crimes - genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity. The Court would have been able to allow Karadzic to step in any time he wanted to take the floor on his own behalf but also be assisted by the defence counsel.

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