NCJ Number
223378
Journal
Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 53 Issue: 3 Dated: May 2008 Pages: 524-532
Date Published
May 2008
Length
9 pages
Annotation
This article describes a collaborative research project between the University of Tennessee's (UT's) Forensic Anthropology Center and the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Office of the Prosecutor, with the goal of investigating methods used for the demographic analysis of forensic evidence in victim identification and, where appropriate, to recalibrate methods for individual estimation of age, sex, and stature for use in identifying victims in the regions of the former Yugoslavia.
Abstract
The ICTY-UT collaboration produced an unprecedented and comprehensive body of work that is applicable to investigators of war crimes in the Balkan region and further impacts anthropologists working globally on war crimes cases and massive human rights violations. The ICTY-UT collaboration does this by providing a model of skeletal assessment for the creation of biological profiles that can be applied to any population. The objectives of the ICTY-UT project were to investigate population variation among Americans and East Europeans and to ensure that the scientific protocols used provide accurate and reliable estimates of the parameters of identity and the reconstruction of demographic profiles of victims based on probability statistics. Mass atrocities due to human rights violations and war occur over a long period of time and involve hundreds of thousands of victims over large geographical areas. There is a false assumption that the pool of missing persons is known; however, in most cases the missing individuals are not known and include not only murdered victims but also internally displaced persons and foreign refugees. This article discusses the method currently used throughout the Balkans in identifying deceased victims, and estimated demographic parameters obtained through medicolegal death investigations are compared with identified cases. Based on this investigation, recommendations for improving international protocols for evidence collection, presentation, and research are outlined. 4 tables, 2 figures, and 55 references