Journalist or Witness?

Abstract

Jonathan Randal, who covered the Balkan Wars for The Washington Post, was subpoenaed to testify before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. He challenged the subpoena. The Tribunal Appeals Chamber ruled that war correspondents have a qualified privilege to refuse to testify before the tribunal. The court held that it must balance the interest in free flow of information from war zones against the interest in the fair administration of justice. This article argues that the Appeals Chamber holding was deficient because it omitted the safety of the correspondent, his family and his sources from the equation. The American case of Robert Young Pelton, who interviewed John Walker Lindh in Afghanistan for Cable News Network (CNN), is also reviewed.