News Archive

On 22 November 2017, the ICTY rendered the judgment in its final trial, in the case of Prosecutor v. Ratko Mladić. The judgment marked the end not only of the proceedings in this case but also of the work of the ICTY. The establishment of the ICTY almost 25 years earlier had come to mark the beginning of a new era for international criminal law and its work triggered the creation of new institutions, in particular the International Criminal Court. The rendering of the trial judgment against Ratko Mladić is therefore a good moment to review the current state of international criminal law. As one of the biggest war crimes trials in history, it presents numerous challenges and lessons that are relevant for all other present and future international courts and tribunals. Jonas Nilsson was the Senior Legal Officer advising the Trial Chamber throughout the pre-trial and trial proceedings in this case. He is therefore in a unique position to provide an insider's perspective of these challenges and lessons. 

 

Jonas Nilsson worked at ICTY between 2005 and 2017 as a Senior Legal Officer and Legal Officer. He was the team leader in Trial Chamber I, assigned to the Mladić case. He has a Master of Laws from the University of Lund and a Master of International Human Rights Law from the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Lund. Jonas Nilsson has previously worked with human rights and refugee law at Amnesty International and the Swedish Helsinki Committee. Between 2001 and 2003, he lived in Kosovo and worked at the Ombudsperson Institution in Kosovo as the Director of Investigations. He has published many articles on international criminal law and human rights, including articles for the Oxford Companion to International Criminal Justice (Antonio Cassese, Ed.), Code of International Criminal Law and Procedure – Annotated (Larcier), and the Commentary on the Law of the International Criminal Court (Mark Klamberg, Ed.).   

   

All welcome!