The ICTY and ICTR have had to deal with many problems throughout their almost two decade-long histories—from arresting fugitives to state cooperation to funding.

But their biggest problem now that they’re closing shop (ICTY in 2014; ICTR in 2012) seems to be a sort of internal brain drain: experienced legal minds from both tribunals are fleeing in droves for more stable employment elsewhere.

“Staff retention remains the greatest challenge”, ICTR President Khalida Rachid Khan told the UN Security Council earlier this month. Nearly one-third of the chambers’ legal staff, she added, had left in the past few months alone.

“Nothing has been done to remedy the problem posed by large-scale staff departures”, said ICTY President Theodor Meron, whose court faces the same challenges of not only keeping staff, but recruiting qualified newcomers.

But both presidents offered the Security Council a possible solution to the problem: if they were allowed to hire their most talented interns directly from their assignments to vacant posts, “many personnel problems could be remedied,” said Meron. Currently, General Assembly resolutions regulating employment have meant that interns can’t be hired for six months following the completition of their internships, denying the courts, said Meron, of “a cost-free measure that would apply to only a small number of interns”. Khalida Rachid Kahn strongly supports hiring qualified interns without a six-month break.

Security Council member Christophe Eick of Germany said the existing employment prohibition for interns made no sense for a “tribunal on the verge of shutting down”. He welcomed Security Council resolution 1993 (2011), which calls for a “flexible approach” to the problem. Indeed, both Tribunal presidents say they’ll have a hard time meeting their closing deadlines without enough staff to do the job.