David Tolbert, currently serving as Registrar for the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, will take over as president of the International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) on March 2nd. The ICTJ works to redress and prevent severe human rights violations by confronting legacies of mass abuse.

By Thijs Bouwknegt

What will be your first priority when you start at the ICTJ?
I want to build on the work the centre has already done on truth telling on truth commissions, truth and reconciliation commissions, reparations and related issues. I think there are some really important issues to be dealt with, in terms of international justice, the hybrid courts and, in particular in terms of complementarity. But I would like to focus also on the International Criminal Court and the issue of complementarity and on how that can work with domestic courts and prosecutions.

Of course, there are some situations I want to look at in terms of what is happening in real time. We have a situation in Guinea which is very serious and also in Sri Lanka, where they had a conflict and many victims. ICTJ is very concerned about the plight of victims and their role in truth-telling, international courts and receiving reparations.

What is the most suitable transitional justice mechanism?
I don’t think there is a cookie-cutter approach whereby you simply say: this works, full stop. I think it depends a lot on the type of conflict that has occurred in that society, or the transition the country is going through. It is the principles which are important. There has to be accountability, victims have to be able to tell the truth. The society has to get to grips with what has happened so that they can move on. So, the mechanisms will differ from place to place, but the principles do not.

How do you see the link between transitional justice and building sustainability?
That is an academic debate, I would rather focus on what we have seen happening.

South America has done a very good job in addressing the past. Also in parts of eastern Europe, which is a very different situation. I think some good things have happened in the countries to help face the past. Maybe imperfectly, of course, but contrast that to the situation in Armenia, which continues to be a source of tremendous contention after over a century. Even if you think of modern day Spain, the events of the 1930’s are an issue of great contention today and exhumations are undergoing and identification of victims, even though more than 80 years have passed.

So if we look at this issue we know that we have to deal with what happened and the truth told. And we have to find transitional justice mechanisms to deal with that, appropriate to those countries, bearing in mind the principles of accountability.

How do you envisage the future of the Lebanon tribunal?
The court is fully functioning and well running in the sense that everything is in place. In terms of the future of the Tribunal, of course it depends on the cases that come before it.

It is a tough investigation, it’s much more difficult in many respects than the investigations that I ultimately was in charge of when I was deputy prosecutor at the Yugoslavia tribunal. If you look at Srebrenica, you have the seventy-five hundred bodies on the ground, you know who pulled the trigger.

The case that prosecutors at the STL are investigating is a much more difficult one, it’s even what we call in English a ‘who dunnit’. There’s no smoking gun in anybody’s hand. But I am optimistic. We also have to realise that it’s very innovative, it’s the first international court to deal with an act of terrorism and that’s what’s groundbreaking. It is also the first international tribunal dealing with the Middle East.

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