RT Article
T1 The Kosovo Specialist Chambers from a political realism perspective
JF International journal of transitional justice
VO 13
IS 2
SP 290
OP 309
A1 Muharremi, Robert
LA English
YR 2019
UL https://krimdok.uni-tuebingen.de/Record/1844203239
AB This article complements current legal research on the Kosovo Specialist Chambers and the Specialist Prosecutor’s Office - the ‘Special Court’ - by tracing the political process and the interests which influenced the court’s establishment. A key question is why the Special Court was established at all and why it was established as a national court, despite being under full international control. Political realism provides a useful theoretical framework to discuss these questions since it claims that international criminal tribunals are established to serve the interests of powerful states and not necessarily to provide international justice. The article’s main hypothesis is that the Special Court was created as a national court not only to address war crimes and prosecute the perpetrators of those crimes, but also to protect international actors from possible legal exposure in connection with their involvement in Kosovo during the time when the alleged crimes were committed.
K1 Hybrid tribunals
K1 International justice
K1 war crimes
K1 Kosovo
K1 political realism
DO 10.1093/ijtj/ijz002