Reference no: EM133202400

This dispute between Verovšek and Arendt reflects a larger dispute in the literature on the ultimate purpose of international courts: should the main purpose of international courts be to deliver justice, or should courts become vehicles of social reconciliation?

For Arendt, it would be preposterous to demand from a court to encourage social peace in a society simply because courts have only one purpose: to deliver justice. If it were not so, Arendt would argue, judges would become social engineers whose aim is to bridge differences rather than establishing who is guilty of a crime from those who are not.

For Verovšek, instead, justice is not a value in itself; justice is true to itself only when it becomes a tool for social transformation. What is the point to establish who is right from who is wrong if the outcome of this activity is that to generate only more hatred in a society? It would be paradoxically better not having justice if this means peace.

What is your stand on this issue? Do you think that ICTY was up to its mandate because it delivered justice and contributed to the establishment of international human rights regime or, instead, the ICTY was a partial failure because its decisions have not healing Bosnian society in the long term?