The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) was illegally created by the UN in 1993. The UN’s Charter grants it no power whatsoever to establish a criminal court but the US was keen to exploit a widely reported humanitarian crisis which had arisen during a civil war in Yugoslavia,  The Americans realised they could use the crisis as cover to advance and justify their plans to break up Yugoslavia for strategic self-interest and to satisfy NATO ambitions. All they had to do was demonise the Serbs as genocidal killers, modern day Nazis, and carry out a little bombing to ‘make them see sense’.

Hugely exaggerated and unchecked media reports were used to pressure the UN into taking rapid action to set up the tribunal under its so-called Chapter 7 powers ‘to maintain or restore international peace and security…following a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or an act of aggression.’ The usual route of agreeing a treaty was abandoned on the ground there simply wasn’t time. Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali said the only justification he could see was ‘expediency’- which turned out to be based on false media coverage.

The UN quickly decided that it would be unethical to take day to day responsibility for the ICTY so stood back simply requesting an annual report and accounts while leaving the membership to run things.

The United States promptly stepped in and took total control. Within weeks they had rewritten the tribunal’s Statute giving it far more power than had been envisaged by the UN Security Council. This included the ability to make new international law, ignoring the Security Council’s specific instructions to enforce only ‘existing international law.’

The US funded and recruited the tribunal’s legal and administrative staff, managing every aspect of its day to running. The Chairman of the court was always American and although the tribunal included people from many countries, all were recruited by the US which retained full control at all times.

Our video ‘Rogue Tribunal’, completed in 2019 and updated in 2022, details the ICTY’s huge range of major failings and deficiencies. It exposes blatant bias, deep prejudice, and complete disregard for due process. The tribunal was a travesty.

This year’s 30th anniversary of Srebrenica will once again be marked by a fresh outpouring of UN propaganda memorialising this entirely manufactured genocide – a false historical narrative. If you care about truth, watch ‘Rogue Tribunal’ and prepare to be amazed and outraged by the lengths to which the US and its NATO allies still go to hide their guilt, whatever the cost to others.