Pragmatism as Principle

At the turn of this cen­tury, a number of hy­brid courts were es­ta­blished to pro­secute the most severe crimes com­mit­ted in war­ring and post-conflict societies. It was hoped that the de­cisions would be viewed as more le­gi­ti­mate and the courts could be more ef­ficient through local inte­gration rather than the use of purely inter­national criminal courts. However, inter­ference by local elites, re­cur­rent fun­ding short­falls and a lack of owner­ship by inter­national actors quickly cooled en­thusiasm for hybrid criminal pro­se­cution. Since 2013, however, a new gen­eration of hybrid in­sti­tutions has been es­tablished. Lisbeth Zimmermann looks at what has been learned from the mis­takes of the first gen­eration, and what sig­ni­fi­cance hybrid courts could have in the future.