Case Study: The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia’s Court Transcripts in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian—Part 1: Needs, Feasibility, and Output Assessment

Abstract

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) remains the most important organization for the past, the present, and the future of the former Yugoslavia. Faced with a country that always lived under totalitarian regimes with very little insight into actions of the groups and individuals who reaped unthinkable havoc on each other at the end of the twentieth century, the ICTY set undisputable historical record about events that took place during the 1991–1999 wars and put the country on an excellent track towards transformation for the better. But even 28 years since the establishment of the ICTY, the former Yugoslavia remains the hotbed of nationalism, ethnic divisions, genocide denial, and genocide justification. Court transcripts belong to the category of the permanent court record. The ICTY court transcripts have only been made in English and French, but not in Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian (B/C/S), the languages of the former Yugoslavia. This paper is going to examine the needs for the ICTY court transcripts in the B/C/S, could they have been made in the B/C/S from the very beginning of the institution and whether the existing ICTY court transcripts in the B/C/S are up to par for any of its audiences.