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Abstract

The dissolution of Yugoslavia in the 1990's presented an opportunity for the international community to join together, and address wrongs committed against people in Eastern Europe. Specifically, wrongs committed in Bosnia Herzegovina and Kosovo presented the greatest opportunity to address the abuse of human rights, as there were reported tortures, murders, ethnic cleansing, and genocide.

The international community responded with the creation of the International Criminal Tribunal of the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which indicted 161 high-level war criminals who had propagated some of the worst atrocities committed against segments of the Bosnian and Kosovan populations, respectively. The creation of the ICTY and its success in the eyes of the international community set an important precedent for the creation of future organizations.

One such organization is the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC is known as "a court of last resort" and exists to protect human rights abuses committed against individuals. While valiant on paper, the ICC is limited in scope and jurisdiction and requires full cooperation from states to be able to fulfill its duty to protect people. That is, unless states are signatories to the Rome Treaty, which created the ICC, states are not legally required to comply with the ICC, and if they are required to do so, there is no enforcement mechanism in place to carry out orders from the ICC.

Ukraine is currently embroiled in a battle for its sovereignty against Russia, after Russia invaded Ukraine in February of 2022. There already exist various reports of human rights abuses being committed against Ukrainian soldiers and civilians alike during the war. Even though the ICC serves as a "court of last resort," it is implicated in this conflict because the judiciary in Ukraine is currently undergoing extensive revision. During times of war, and when the domestic judiciary's history signals corruption, one of Ukrainian citizens' potential solutions is to bring forth their complaints with the ICC. However, as this article will explain, the ICC's power and role in the international sphere is highly limited and dependent on whether other states cooperate in investigating such matters.

A lack of access to fair, unbiased domestic courts means that the ICC would likely have the opportunity to use its limited power to try to address the wrongs committed against Ukrainians. However, because this power is severely limited, and because domestic courts likely will not provide a proper redress for many citizens, there is a very real possibility that Ukrainian nationals who have suffered human rights abuses during this war are never fully made whole. Ukrainians could find themselves in a place where the abuse they have suffered is either not fully redressed or is inadequately addressed.

This article and its content are not a renunciation of any one nation or ethnicity. Rather, this article seeks to examine recent historical events and tie them to a contemporaneous geopolitical problem, using these past events to raise warning about how wrongful actions from the past are festering themselves into the Russia-Ukraine crisis today. This article is only meant to inform and point out connections between the past and the present. After all, history more than tends to repeat itself.

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