FAIR TRIALS AT INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL TRIBUNALS: EXAMINING THE PARAMETERS OF THE INTERNATIONAL RIGHT TO COUNSEL

I. INTRODUCTION

Crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide are international crimes.1 Rape, torture, mass extermination, mutilation, abduction, and persecution are just a certain number of of the elements of the atrocity crimes recognized through the international community.2 With the exception of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg and the International Military Tribunal for the Far East, conduct officials responsible for atrocity crimes in the past many times avoided prosecution.3 Those responsible for state-sponsored crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide have increasingly been brought to justice in novel years. In 1993, the international community drafted the statute for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Prosecution of somebodys Responsible for Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), creating the first international tribunal since World War II in order to continue former regime leaders of Yugoslavia for crimes against humanity and war crimes.4 Since the establishment of ICTY, the international community has also established an International Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Special Panel for Serious Crimes Unit in East Timor (SCU) and Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) to bring those responsible for atrocity crimes to justice. Ad hoc tribunals and hybrid courts5 are fundamental in re-building nations ravaged through repressive regimes and represent an opportunity to transition to mastership of law.

When the international community charges those responsible for atrocity crimes, trials must be fair. The tribunals should exhibit a model of justice independent and unrestrained from manipulation by the presiding regulation The right to a fair trial is a basic human right. Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights guarantees that "[ejveryone is entitled in filled equality to a fair and public hearing by dint of an independent and impartial tribunal."6 single of the primary tools used to safeguard the right to a fair trial is the right to interchange of opinion Traditionally, common-law adversarial systems equated the right to interchange of opinion as one of the "constitutional safeguards of human life and liberty."7 For example, the United States constitutionalized the right to "Assistance of Counsel" in its Sixth Amendment.8 International conventions also recognize the right to consultation Article 6 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights guarantees the right to interchange of opinion "when the interests of justice with equal reason require."9 Article 14(d) of the International Covenant upon Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) states that a individual has a right

to guard himself in person or end legal assistance of his be in possession of choosing; to be informed, if he does not have legal assistance, of this right; and to have legal assistance assigned to him, in any case where the interests of justice thus require, and without payment by the agency of him in any such case if he does not have sufficient means to pay for it.10

Although the convention and covenant provide little guidance upon the parameters of the right to consultation they establish the right as a norm of international law. A defense consultation balances aggressive state prosecutorial action in an adversarial combination of parts to form a whole to ensure a fair trial. single by guaranteeing every citizen, plane those charged with the greatest in quantity heinous crimes, a right to a fair trial can a state verily proclaim that it will honor the mastership of law.

The right to consultation guaranteed in national constitutions and international conventions, means more than the right to a lawyer in the courtroom. Peripheral rights play an integral character in protecting the substantive right to interchange of opinion Parts II and III of this Note examine by what mode the right to counsel has evolv to incorporate a package of rights that work together to guarantee an effective right to consultation at the ICTY, ICTR, and SCSL Part FV direct the eyes at how the lack of procedural protections impact proceedings at the SCU Finally, Part V submits that novel international tribunals are under an obligation to convenient minimum standards for protecting the right to consultation and should follow the standard articulated through the ICTY, ICTR, and SCSL

II. THE RIGHT TO interchange of opinion IN INTERNATIONAL AD Hoc TRIBUNALS

Beginning in 1993 the UN security Council, using its Chapter VII powers, established ad hoc tribunals to put to the test those accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide in Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The internationalization of the trials [i]or[/i] part of to the other new, independent, ad hoc tribunals ensur that perpetrators of international crimes would be brought to trial and that victims would be delivered justice. The tribunals combined public law procedures from countries like the United States, England, Australia, and Canada with civil law manner of proceedings from countries like France, Germany, and Italy. Because international tribunals of the like kind as the ICTY and ICTR were designed to be largely adversarial, the right to consultation was determined to be critical to guarantee fairness at the proceedings. The statutes of the tribunals, the dominions of evidence and procedure, and case law articulate the right to counsel