Robinson blazes trail in international law
August 18, 2009
On Sunday, Patrick Robinson put away his legal documents and settled in at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, Germany, to indulge in one of his great passions: track and field.
He watched sprinter Usain Bolt scorch the track to post an amazing 9.58-second world record for the 100 metres at the World Championships.
Later this month, the 65-year-old Robinson will have his share of international attention as president of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague in The Netherlands.
He is the presiding judge in the trial of Radovan Karadzic, who, starting August 29, will plead his case against war-crime charges for the deaths of thousands of Bosnian Muslims and Croats.
Robinson, who has been a judge at the tribunal since 1998, was recently awarded the Order of Jamaica for his groundbreaking work in international law.
Presiding judge
He was also presiding judge for the trial of the former Serbia and Yugoslav president, Slobodan Milosevic, who was being tried for war crimes committed during years of bloody ethnic conflict in Croatia, Bosnia/Herzegovina and Kosovo.
Milosevic died while in custody at The Hague in March 2006.
Robinson was appointed president of the ICTY in November 2008. He rates the trial as the most challenging of his career.
"Milosevic's death ended the trial just three weeks before it was scheduled to be concluded. His untimely passing deprived both the victims and him of a verdict on the allegations in the indictment against him," Robinson told The Gleaner last week....
Author: Howard Campbell
Source: Jamaica Gleaner
