The goals of this report are fourfold: (1) to provide an overall assessment of the "hybrid" UN sponsored Serious Crimes process in east Timor; (2) to analyze the performance of the various structural components of that process; (3) to examine the legacy of the Serious Crimes enterprise; and (4) to discuss the lessons to be learned from the five-year experience of the United Nations in seeking justice for the people of East Timor. The report's conclusions are based upon a comprehensive and detailed analysis of a number of key areas and a full assessment of the jurisprudence of the trials. It draws heavily upon hundreds of hours of interviews with key participants in every aspect of the Serious Crimes process. The report demonstrates that, on the whole, the process was so deeply flawed from the beginning that, despite the important and successful efforts of key individuals to make structural improvements, egregious problems remained until the very end. These problems are serious enough to at least call into question whether important aspects of the process as a whole met international standards. Further, an analysis of the impact of these problems upon trial and appellate proceedings and Judgments provides substantive grounds for questioning the basic fairness of a significant number of the Serious Crimes trials, the adequacy of the appeals process, and, hence, the legitimacy of some of the ensuing convictions. One of the questions this report addresses is why this state of affairs was allowed to persist for so long. This is a question that must be answered if the "lessons learned" from East Timor are to be a guide for future tribunals and for the UN in its ongoing role of administering international judicial institutions.
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Editorial Reviews
About the Author
David Cohen is director of the Berkeley War Crimes Studies Center and Sidney and Margaret Ancker Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at the University of California, Berkeley. Since 2001 he has also been an adjunct fellow at the East-West Center, where he directs the Asian International Justice Initiative. He completed his law degree at UCLA (1972) and his PhD in ancient history at the University of Cambridge (1978). He has taught at UC Berkeley since 1978. Cohen's areas of research include ancient law, legal and social history, international criminal law, human rights, and war crimes trials from World War II to today. He has been observing and reporting on trials related to East Timor since 2001. His report on the trials before the Ad Hoc Human Rights Court in Jakarta, "Intended to Fail" was published in 2004 by the International Center for Transitional Justice.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
peace but not justice,
By
This review is from: Indifference and Accountability: The United Nations and the Politics of International Justice in East Timor (Paperback)
Perhaps you could call this unfinished justice. The book reviews attempts by the United Nations to investigate massive human rights violations during the Indonesian occupation of East Timor. With an emphasis on the events during the withdrawl of Indonesian forces. It describes the bloody unrest; triggered by indigenous Fretilin guerrillas and the Indonesian counter-insurgency. We see how Kopassas armed friendly East Timorese militias, which then went on to wreck havoc on the guerrillas and their sympathisers.
Some militia leaders were named, along with a few Indonesian officers. But none of the latter were brought before an East Timor or UN tribunal. Nor is this likely to change. As even under the new Indonesian democracy, it seems unlikely that Indonesia will give up any senior officers or officials. The book goes on about wrangling over procedures. Interminable. Along with efforts to extradite Indonesian suspects. Back and forth between the UN, East Timor government and the Indonesian government, with little to show for it. For some readers, the book will be a difficult read. There is now a peace, sort of. But little justice. It may take decades for the book's events to fade and a peaceful civil society to fully emerge in East Timor. The brutal truth, and hence the Indifference in the book's title, is that East Timor is a minor country.
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