Testifying Through Video Conferencing and The Procedure of International Criminal Tribunals in Its Acceptance

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Assistant prof. at Allameh Tabataba’i Univ.

2 PhD student of International Law

Abstract

New communication technologies that have become increasingly prominent with the advent of the Internet have affected most areas of international law including international judicial procedure. Video conferencing is one of the cases that raises the topic of using technology in international criminal tribunals. These courts, which by initially introducing various Preconditions were accepting video testimony only in very exceptional cases, gradually and with increasing development of technology, interpreted their jurisdiction in a way to accept such matter. Indeed, as seen in the process of changing the approach of international criminal tribunals, including the international criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the international criminal tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), the Special Court of Sierra Leone and the International Criminal Court for accepting testimony through videoconferencing, the modern communication technologies have been able to impose themselves to the field of judicial procedure as an objective reality in the international community.
 

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