A bad decision

Srebrenica mass grave

Press freedom is always in danger around the world including Europe, as demonstrate unfortunately the sad Italian case, where the press is attacked by the government because criticize it. But today the most controversial decision is that of the International Criminal Court in The Hague that condemned the French journalist Florence Hartmann with a 7000 euro fine, for publishing confidential documents about war crimes committed in Bosnia.

Hartmann was the spokeswoman for prosecutor Carla Del Ponte, in the trial against the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, who died in 2006 before the sentence. In 2007, in a book entitled "Peace and Punishment", the French journalist revealed that the ICC had obtained documents from the Serbian government to indict Milosevic, but agreed not to make them public because they might involve Serbia in war crimes committed in Bosnia.
The Court sentenced Hartmann on the grounds that it would be necessary to demonstrate to governments that the court is determined to protect confidential information. The documents could prove the link between Serbia and the massacre at Srebrenica, where 8000 Bosnian Muslims were killed in 1995, and would have allowed Bosnia to sue Serbia for genocide. Most of the responsible for the massacre in fact, and for many other massacres that occurred in those years, are still fugitives.
According to the organization Reporters without borders "The only honourable outcome to these sad proceedings would have been Florence Hartmann’s acquittal. Unfortunately, this did not happen and we regret it deeply. This conviction undermines the credibility of international criminal justice. How can you trust a court that chooses to conceal documents that would help to render justice and then suppresses information about its own functioning? International justice would be strengthened by an open debate about the compromises that are acceptable in order to prepare genocide and war crimes prosecutions.”
The ruling unfortunately reveals all the limits of the International Criminal Court, which often to punish crimes committed must agree with governments to get the necessary information. Even governments that are undoubtedly compromised in these same crimes, as in the case of Serbia. Everyone knows that the trial of Milosevic, unfortunately it was fitting to have a scapegoat, when in fact the Serbian war criminals were many more than just the former president and other defendants. After 14 years since the war is unlikely that the so many innocent victims of the conflict will ever have justice. And the International Criminal Court, to which many countries like Russia, China, Israel and the United States aren't even members, still seems very far from having the capacity to ensure truth and justice in the world.