Abstract
Armed conflicts with many core international crimes committed entail many suspects. There are nearly 2000 opened war crimes cases, including almost 10, 000 suspects in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) as a result of the war which lasted from 1992 to 1995.
Since the ICTY was created to try only those who are the most responsible, the majority of cases were left to the BiH national authorities. In order to systematically and responsibly address this issue, the National War Crimes Strategy was adopted in 2008, with the aim to prevent the impunity and prosecute all or at least most of the perpetrators in 15 years from the adoption of the Strategy. It incorporates the case selection and prioritization criteria which should be used when deciding on the case complexity thereby helping prosecutors and judges to find an appropriate forum for trying a specific case and giving the priority to a certain case if its complexity so requires. The essence of the criteria later became part of the Criminal Procedure Code of BiH and allowed for their direct application in criminal proceedings.
This thesis examines the prospects and dangers of case selection and prioritization criteria as an approach undertaken by the BiH criminal justice system to tackle the large backlog of core international crimes cases on its path towards full accountability for crimes committed.