Introduction

In this and the next chapter, I will examine the “trials of cooperation” that have taken place between the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the Croatian government. In this chapter, I will examine these “trials” during the country's authoritarian period that lasted until the electoral victory of a democratic coalition in January 2000. In the next chapter, I will examine the ICTY-Croatian government “trials” since the beginning of Croatia's democratic period.

A major aim of the Croatia case study, as with the Serbia and Rwanda case studies, is to reveal the often hidden ways in which targeted states manipulate the course of international justice. The ability of the Croatian government to thwart the ICTY underscores the extent to which its prosecutorial agenda can be shaped by the political interference of targeted states. The Croatia case, as much as the Serbia case, also demonstrates the central role that key international actors such as the United States and the European Union play in both undermining and bolstering the tribunal's quest for cooperation from targeted states. The tribunal, however, is not predestined to be an arm of either the international community or targeted states. The Croatia and Serbia case studies point to a developmental process whereby the ICTY has evolved into a strategic actor with an increasing capacity to press states to cooperate while protecting itself from external manipulation.