International courts cannot handle all possible international crimes prosecutions; as such, it is incumbent upon national systems to carry much of the burden. Indeed, the International Criminal Court is expressly complementary; it will assert jurisdiction only when there is no domestic court that is willing or able to bring charges. Although the ad hoc criminal tribunals enjoyed primacy over domestic systems due to their Security Council provenance, the relationship is still a partnership, as evidenced by the high degree of information sharing between the tribunals and their domestic counterparts, the provision of technical assistance and training to local actors, and the ICTY’s Rules-of-the-Road project. Rule 11bis was added to the Rules of Procedure and Evidence to enable the ad hoc tribunals to refer low-level cases to a domestic system with jurisdiction as part of the tribunals’ Security Council-mandated Completion Strategies. Putting to the side the imperatives of capacity, efficiency and cost-effectiveness, many experts express a preference for local justice for more deontological reasons. The theory is that judicial processes convened closer to the events in question will enjoy greater legitimacy within impacted regions, help instantiate the rule of law, and enable more meaningful access and participation for victims and witnesses.

Efforts at local justice can backfire, of course, as exemplified by the work of the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal (BICT). The BICT is a purely domestic effort proceeding under a 1973 statute defining international crimes within Bangladeshi law. Tracing its roots to the War of Liberation that gave rise to modern-day Bangladesh, the BICT is dedicated to prosecuting alleged collaborators of the Pakistani Army (then West Pakistan) for atrocities committed when East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) sought to secede in March 1971. These events cry out for justice; however, the fundamentally unfair proceedings underway before the BICT pervert the values and goals of transitional justice, insult the victims who deserve a more legitimate accountability process, and threaten to leave a lasting stain on both the Bangladeshi legal system and the system of international justice writ large. Many of the defendants may in fact be guilty of the crimes of which they are charged. But because the proceedings are so profoundly unfair, and the defendants are subject to the death penalty, we will never know for certain. Once hailed as a courageous and important exercise in historical justice, the BICT has become an object lesson for how international criminal law can be manipulated for political ends.

The BICT has drawn sharp criticism for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which is that its proceedings are entirely one-sided. So far, indictments have been leveled against eleven defendants representing the senior leadership of two opposition political parties (nine from Jamaat-e-Islami and two from the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP))—both rivals of the ascendant Awami League. Not a single so-called freedom fighter (mukti bahani) or Pakistani national has been prosecuted, suggesting that the BICT is just a tool within a byzantine political vendetta rather than a genuine, and long-overdue, effort at historical justice. Although Bangladesh has ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (in 2000), and was the first, and one of the few, Asian nations to ratify the ICC Statute (on March 23, 2010), many aspects of proceedings run afoul of the litany of procedural protections owed to criminal defendants under human rights law, most notably Article 14 of the ICCPR. Some of this unfairness can be traced to the very genetic code of the BICT’s legal framework; the rest has is attributable to the practice of the tribunal.

Due in part to their perceived unfairness and one-sidedness, the trials have become a dangerously polarizing force in Bangladesh. The verdicts have prompted mass demonstrations, street violence, and destructive hartals (strikes), which have brought Dhaka to a veritable standstill, destroyed public and private party, and led to the deaths of dozens of protesters at the hands of the Bangladeshi security forces. The imposition of the death penalty brings supporters of Jamaat-e-Islami to the streets; a mere life sentence, by contrast, infuriates backers of the Awami League and prompts competing protests and petition drives calling for the application of the death penalty. Many observers breathed a sigh of relief when the Supreme Court on September 17, 2014, commuted the sentence from death to life imprisonment of a leading Islamist politician and cleric, Delwar Hossain Sayedee. Nonetheless, the move sparked street protests, expressions of disappointment from members of the government, and calls for the Constitution to be amended yet again to remove the possibility of pardon. This trial was marked by heightened controversy, particularly when a key defense witness (who had originally agreed to testify for the prosecution) was kidnapped on the courtroom steps by plain-clothed agents as he arrived to testify. (He was later forcibly transported to India where he was promptly arrested for immigration violations). The independence of the judiciary—such as it was—is even more in jeopardy since the 16th Amendment to the Constitution—finalized on September 22, 2014—will empower Parliament to impeach Supreme Court judges for “incapability and misconduct.”

Notwithstanding these defects, the proceedings are popular among a number of victim groups, who have been denied any meaningful justice since the War of Liberation. In particular, the trials have given voice to the so-called Birangonas (“war heroines”), who are on record demanding the mass application of the death penalty—and worse—to BICT defendants. The Birangonas suffered unimaginably during the War of Liberation, and they deserve their day in court. They also deserve a legitimate, fair, and impartial judicial process that will stand the test of time, rather than the facsimile of justice being peddled by the BICT: justice in the service of politics and the demands of the street.

In August, I participated in a session at the San Francisco Bar Association (video here) on the BICT with Toby Cadman, a British barrister doing a yeoman’s job of representing defendants before the BICT. The remainder of this series of posts will provide a backgrounder on the BICT proceedings and the substance of our remarks.  Part 2 provides a deep history of the BICT; Part 3 addresses the BICT’s procedural infirmities.  The BICT can be followed more closely here and here. The best academic treatment of the BICT’s history and jurisdiction is by Suzannah Linton of Bangor University.