7 - Transnational Collaborations in Transitional Justice

Summary

Hybrid tribunals are the international legal community’s response to the perceived weakness of fully international criminal tribunals in engaging national audiences and promoting reform of national legal systems. But despite locating themselves in the concerned post-conflict states or employing national attorneys, judges, and staff to serve alongside their international counterparts, hybrid criminal tribunals have not found these structural changes to be a quick fix. Instead, like international tribunals, they have also struggled to achieve their desired national legacy. This chapter focuses on one of the elements affecting hybrid tribunals’ performance in general and national impact in particular: the transnational collaboration between “internationals” and “nationals” that is one of the core features of hybrid tribunals. It explores the interpersonal and communal aspects of these transnational collaborations between nationals and internationals, building on previous work theorizing on these aspects of collaborations among internationals in international criminal law and rule of law initiatives, and drawing from a set of interviews with internationals who have worked in several transnational settings, including hybrid courts, other international criminal tribunals, and rule of law initiatives.