Canadian Takes Up Deputy Prosecutor Post

Norman Farrell took up his post as deputy prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, this week following his appointment by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.



Farrell, 49, who has worked at the tribunal since 1999, replaces David Tolbert, who has moved on to become the secretary-general’s special expert at the UN-backed Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. The Cambodian court was established to try leaders of the Khmer Rouge for the killing of some 1.7 million people between 1975 and 1979.



Farrell first joined the ICTY as appeals counsel for the office of the prosecutor, OTP; he simultaneously served in the same capacity at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, based in Arusha, Tanzania. In 2002 he was promoted to senior appeals counsel at both tribunals, before becoming the OTP’s principal legal officer at the ICTY.



The tribunal currently faces the busiest period in its 15-year history, with eight trials involving 28 defendants being heard.



Farrell said he was honoured to take up his new role as the tribunal works to complete its remaining cases within the time allotted by the UN Security Council.



According to the revised deadline, the tribunal is scheduled to finish all cases by the end of 2009, and hear all appeals by the end of 2011.



However, in an address to the Security Council last month, tribunal president Fausto Pocar said that in his opinion, the ICTY should not close until the remaining fugitives have been detained and tried.



One of the figures who was still on the run, Stojan Zupljanin, was arrested on June 11 and has since been transferred to The Hague. Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the former Bosnian Serb political and military leaders, respectively, and wartime Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic are still at large.



Farrell is originally from Canada, where he studied before gaining a master’s degree in law from Columbia University in New York.



Before joining the tribunal, he worked in the field of international humanitarian law for the Red Cross in Sarajevo, as well as holding posts in Ethiopia and Switzerland.



Simon Jennings is an IWPR reporter in The Hague.