The former “Yugoslavia Tribunal” as Monument of Justice

After Nuremberg, there is probably no other place where the future of Europe has been so definitively tested and secured as in The Hague. The iconic building of the former International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) has become a global icon of international law and transitional justice since its establishment in 1993. As the direct successor of the International Military Tribunal of Nuremberg in 1945-1946, this UN tribunal was after 25 years of unprecedented success in investigating and trying all major war crimes suspects from the Yugoslavia wars of the 1990s. It has also made history through a first application of the UN Genocide Convention with the trial of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre. This report addresses the question of how the significance of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia as a heritage and memorial site for its many (inter)national stakeholders can be preserved after the departure of the UN and a possible redevelopment of the site.