| Press Release |
TRIBUNAL
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| (Exclusively for the use of the media. Not an official document) |
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The Hague,
8 January 1998CC/PIO/282-E
The International Tribunal welcomes with delight the "Magnificent Donation" by the
Netherlands and the United States of a "very much needed" fully-fledged second courtroom
On Thursday 8 January 1998, in The Hague, the Minister of Justice of The Netherlands, H.E Winnie Sorgdrager, and the United States Ambassador-at-large for war crimes issues, H.E. David Scheffer, announced that their countries would fund and undertake the construction of a second full facility courtroom at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.
This joint donation is worth of approximately US $ 2,6 million. The Netherlands will contribute NLG 3,3 million (about US $ 1,65 million) and the United States of America US $ 1 million. The Dutch-American donation follows on the announcement on 17 December 1997 by Canada that up to Canadian $ 200,000 would be donated towards the cost of building a new courtroom facility (see Press Release 280).
The President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald and the Registrar, Mrs Dorothee de Sampayo, attended the ceremony and expressed their sincere gratitude.
"A magnificent donation" and a "crucial push"
"I very much appreciate this magnificent donation which better enables the Tribunal to discharge its mandate expeditiously" said President McDonald. She described the joint effort by these two States as "a crucial push for the adjudication of the crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia".
Indeed, in order to deal swiftly and speedily with the Tribunal’s increased case-load, the Judges and the Registry recently took a series of practical measures: the existing cases were divided between the Chambers; the Chambers were composed in such a way that they will hear more cases, by sitting in flexible compositions; and the court sessions hours were extended to enable more than one case to be heard in a single day.
As President McDonald emphasised: "The Dutch-American donation will enable the Tribunal to further reduce the length of pre-trial detention for the accused. It therefore is an important contribution to the administration of justice".
"A very much needed facility"
The Registrar, Mrs de Sampayo, pointed out that "a fully fledged second courtroom to be used in cases with multiple accused is a very much needed facility" referring to the "overloaded hearings schedule for the new year during which the ICTY, as a judicial body, will be operating at full speed".
The January 1998 judicial calendar illustrates this situation: hearings will be held on every single working-day in the Tribunal’s only courtroom, in the totality of the 9 pending cases, 6 of them being at the trial or appellate stage.
BACKGROUND INFORMATION ON THE ICTY’S COURTROOMS
The hearings of the ICTY are currently held in a 470m2 courtroom constructed between July 1994 and March 1995 at a cost in excess of US $ 2,5 million.
Thanks to a generous donation of approximately 500,000 US $ by the British government in July 1997 the ICTY is constructing a 250 m2 courtroom which will be completed by April 1998.
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International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
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