Heritage, Memory and Conflict Journal - Volume 5, Issue 2, 2025

This chapter shows how the location of the former Yugoslavia tribunal has become part of the urban fabric of The Hague. It interprets the city as a “dynamic archive” of memories and visions of the future with different meanings for residents and urban planners, and thus a space full of dissonances. To gain insight into the post-war debates between modernist urban planners and residents about the urban planning of the heavily war-damaged Zorgvliet-World Forum area—the current district of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia—a comparison is made with the German reconstruction debates from 1945 to after the Wende of 1989. From this comparative context, it becomes clear how much urban planning and monument conservation revolved around a ‘romantic modernist’ belief in material authenticity and building. It highlights the impact of the recent ‘heritage turn’ in Dutch spatial policy, which breaks with a long tradition of top-down urban planning. The new heritage policy promotes citizen participation in favor of resilient, adaptive reuse of historic architecture. This opens up future-oriented possibilities for a redevelopment of the surroundings of the former Yugoslavia tribunal, which with its arrival itself became a key to the development of what is known as the ‘International Zone’. In order to assess several initiatives to improve the quality of life in the “deserted” area, which removed from the city is increasingly focused on heterogeneous, introverted high-rise offices, a comparison is made with the new urban renewal plan for the Brussels ‘European district’. The chapter ends with a reflection on the question of how the protection of the commemorative values of the former Yugoslavia tribunal can contribute to strengthening the urban identity of The Hague as an international beacon for peace and justice.

Considering the role of The Hague as City of Peace and Justice, the absence of a memorial as a global symbol of international justice at the site where all the existing information has been gathered and legally processed is striking. That even today in the Netherlands, no official policy has been developed for public education and commemoration of the largest and bloodiest European war since World War II is even more surprising given that the country was directly involved in at least three ways: as one of the most ardent supporters of military intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina; as the host country of the ICTY, and as receiving country for tens of thousands of Bosnian and other Yugoslav refugees, with Srebrenica meanwhile reverberating as a national trauma. These issues are the subject of this chapter, the first and longest part of which deals with the Bosnian war and the events that led to the genocide in Srebrenica, the failed UN peacekeeping mission of Dutchbat, and the legal processing of the UN Yugoslavia Tribunal. The second section examines the evolution of the ICTY at Churchillplein 1 in The Hague, and the reciprocal influence between the ICTY and the growing global media attention it attracted. The final section will address the legal significance and impact of the Hague Tribunal as a legal monument for the development of international criminal law in a new relation to human rights and the principle of transitional justice.

This chapter examines the formation, composition, and management of the Tribunal’s archives over the past decades, highlighting long-term risks associated with ensuring their sustainable accessibility. One section focuses on the Churchillplein building in The Hague, exploring its role in the creation, utilization, and stewardship of the archives. Together, the building and the archives constitute a ‘living archive’—a physical and symbolic space where testimonies were delivered, justice was administered, and collective memory is preserved. The archives serve not only as repositories of historical records but also as enduring symbols of hope and justice for the future. While their legal significance is paramount, the chapter emphasizes their broader value and meaning for various stakeholders, including victims, educators, and those engaged in transitional justice processes.

Since the Tribunal’s inception, there has been a widely held belief that the ICTY archives are crucial instruments in preventing the denial of committed crimes. However, recent scholarly discourse suggests that these archives do not represent an unequivocal or singular truth. Instead, they comprise fragments that illuminate different facets of complex realities. A significant portion of the archives consists of materials collected by prosecutors as potential evidence for trials. The prosecutorial decisions—determining which cases to pursue and which to omit—have fundamentally shaped the content of the ICTY archives. The Tribunal’s mandate to investigate and adjudicate crimes within a legal framework has inherently influenced both the substance and organization of the archival records. While there is a consensus on the archives’ potential to transcend their legal origins, realizing this broader significance necessitates deliberate choices. Ensuring that the archives fulfill roles beyond legal documentation—particularly in serving victims and their descendants—requires intentional efforts to make them accessible and meaningful to diverse audiences

This chapter examines the constitution of memorial value in relation to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) building. It commences with an analytical framework for conceptualizing war heritage preservation as memory space, briefly situating the discussion within contemporary theoretical discourse. Subsequently, the analysis addresses comparative approaches to judicial memory sites, specifically examining how both Nuremberg and Sarajevo have established commemorative connections with the ICTY and developed strategies for preserving its institutional memory. The investigation extends to an examination of Bosnian-Dutch community agencies in the Netherlands, particularly focusing on their commemorative practices and activities surrounding the creation of a national memorial for Srebrenica in The Hague. The chapter concludes with a spatial analysis of memorial value as it pertains to the ICTY operation within the Churchillplein 1 building, mapping the multiple dimensions of the memorial value embedded within this unique site of transitional justice.