The United Nations war crimes tribunal for ex-Yugoslavia has ruled that war correspondents should not be forced to give evidence, unless their testimony is essential to the case at hand.

The ruling by the court’s Appeals Chamber, which was delivered on December 11, came in the case of Jonathan Randal, a former Washington Post journalist. Randal had been subpoenaed to testify in the trial of Radoslav Brdjanin, a Bosnian Serb politician charged with genocide, but argued that he should not be compelled to appear in court.

Upholding Randal’s appeal, the court said that there was "an important public interest" in the work of war reporters, and that compelling them to testify could "have a significant impact upon their ability to obtain information" and thus inform the public.

"If war correspondents were to be perceived as potential witnesses for the Prosecution," the court said, "they may have difficulties in gathering significant information, because the interviewed persons may talk less freely with them, and may deny access to conflict zones. Second, war correspondents may shift from being observers of those committing human rights violations to being their targets, thereby putting their own lives at risk."

In light of these risks, the court stated, war correspondents should only be forced to appear as witnesses when their testimony "is of important and direct value in determining a core issue in the case," and also where the evidence they would provide "cannot reasonably be obtained elsewhere."

The ruling is particularly important because it is the first attempt to establish a standard governing the testimony of reporters before international tribunals. Lawyers following the tribunal immediately speculated that it might be adopted by the recently formed International Criminal Court.

Speaking to the Washington Post, Randal expanded on his reasons for contesting the subpoena. "My feeling is that wars are becoming more dangerous for correspondents and forcing them to testify would only increase the dangers," he said. "It's hard to gain the confidence of combatants. Either they won't talk to us at all or they'll kill us. I wanted the court to think long and hard about that."

"This landmark decision in international justice will ensure that war correspondents will not be routinely required to testify before the war crimes tribunal," said Ann Cooper, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Although it dismissed the subpoena against Randal, the court left Brdjanin’s defense team the option of seeking another, if it was prepared to argue that the evidence Randal could provide would meet the tests laid down in the ruling

Related chapters from Crimes of War: What the Public Should Know:

Journalists, Protection of
Journalists in Peril

Related Links

Appeals Chamber Defines a Legal Test for the Issuance of Subpoenas for War Correspondents to Testify at the Tribunal
ICTY Press Release
December 11,2002

Can War Reporters Be Witnesses, Too?
By Nina Bernstein
The New York Times, December 14, 2002

Reporter’s Appeal Upheld
Committee to Protect Journalists
News Alert, December 11, 2002

Reporter Wins Tribunal Appeal
By Glenn Frankel
The Washington Post, December 12, 2002


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