Micaela Frulli

The Contribution of International Criminal Tribunals to the Development of International Law: The Prominence of opinio juris and the Moralization of Customary Law

An assessment of the contribution of the international criminal tribunals (ICTs) to the development of international law may not seem to be, at present, a wise choice as a matter for reflection since almost everything has been said and written on the most critical issue: The manner in which these courts interpreted, applied and developed customary international law. The debate often grew around the questions of where and how to draw the line between evolutive interpretation and the creation of new rules by the judges and consequently on the amount of judicial creativity to be considered acceptable for international criminal law to be consistent with the principle of legality.1 In general, it is acknowledged that at least those appointed as judges at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and at the