General characteristics of evidence in international ad hoc criminal tribunals (ICTY, ICTR, IRMCT)

A study of the evidence in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals is provided. Attention is paid that the Yugoslav and Rwandan tribunals, established by the UN Security Council based on UN Security Council resolutions; the reasons for the creation of these tribunals were the most audacious violations of human rights in the form of international crimes. In fact, in the resolution that established the Yugoslav Tribunal, the UN Security Council expressed its concern about the numerous reports of large-scale and brazen violations of international humanitarian law that occurred in the territory of the former Yugoslavia and, in particular, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and aimed to put an end to such crimes and take effective measures to bring to justice the persons responsible for the mentioned crimes. Since both the ICTY and the ICTR were created as temporary ad hoc tribunals, after their termination, pending cases were transferred to the newly formed body - the IRMCT, which has the same jurisdiction as the ICTY and the ICTR. It was concluded that the rules of evidence adopted by the ICTY, ICTR and IRMCT are «unique». They were formed based on consensus between national legal systems that belong to the legal systems of common law and civil law. It is emphasized that the ICTY and the ICTY, and later the IRMCT adopted fairly soft and flexible rules for the admissibility of evidence. In the event that the Rules of Procedure and Evidence of the ICTY, the ICTR or the IRMCT do not contain relevant norms that regulate the rules of evidence, the Chamber considering the case has the right to apply such rules that best contribute to the fair resolution of the case under consideration and correspond to the spirit of the Statute and the general principles of law. Special attention is paid to the principle of equality of the parties and its role in the collection and presentation of evidence in ad hoc international criminal tribunals.