A/HRC/27/56 violations or serious violations of international humanitarian law should be prosecuted and tried.21 45. The present report is not intended to suggest a specific prescription or the adoption of a particular prioritization strategy constructed around one of the elements elaborated below. The articulation and adoption of a strategy must not constitute a straightjacket. No strategic plan can eliminate all contingencies. Judicial processes are dynamic and the horizon of prosecutorial possibilities shifts at different stages of a transitional process, and thus, there is no single strategy likely to be good at all times. Similarly, a sufficiently complex strategy will involve various factors which can hardly be ranked in order without sacrificing some of the advantages of complexity. 46. The report does not specify the precise weight or the place order of the different elements. It rather intends to outline the variety of the elements, together with their main advantages and drawbacks, so as to equip those developing a prosecutorial strategy with an understanding of the consequences and implications of certain choices. 47. The easiest cases. Some jurisdictions have decided to prioritize the prosecution of “easy cases” (“low-hanging fruits”), where the focus is placed on the likelihood of advancing a case, obtaining an arrest warrant, a hearing, an extradition, a trial or a conviction. This has the advantage of allowing prosecutors to achieve some quick wins and show results in addressing a potential backlog of cases. It may also contribute to the gathering of valuable evidence, at minimum expense. Prosecuting and trying easier or small cases against low-level perpetrators could also be deemed necessary to prepare more complex proceedings against those most responsible.22 48. The initial criteria for Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example, state that it may be necessary to prioritize cases considering the “stage of investigations” and “if individual cases are ready to be tried”.23 A similar strategy was followed in Argentina after the annulment of amnesty laws, when prosecutors were pressured to advance cases in which formal indictments had already been presented, rather than initiating new investigations — enacting a sort of a “do not give up on what you have already started” principle. 49. However, focusing only on readiness to proceed has obvious drawbacks. First, it makes the strategy entirely dependent on previous (often not entirely justified) decisions about which cases to move (it is always worth asking why certain fruits “hang lower” than others). Second, readiness to move is not necessarily related to the identification of overall patterns of violations, any judgement about their gravity or seriousness, or any effort to determine who is most responsible for them. Third, if evidence against one group happens to be more readily available, this strategy may generate perceptions of bias. 50. “Readiness to proceed” may be an attractive option temporarily, but can hardly be considered as the nucleus of a sufficiently comprehensive strategy. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, for example, the initial strategy was changed and additional criteria such as prioritizing the most serious violations and the most responsible were introduced.24 Indeed, as the very term “proceed” suggests, this is a procedural and not a substantive, strategic criterion. 21 22 23 24 10 Among the States which have adopted explicit prosecutorial strategies are Bosnia and Herzegovina and Colombia. Efforts in Argentina — while not having a written strategy — in this domain are exemplary, as are those of Chile. Bergsmo and Saffon, “Enfrentando una fila”, p. 57. Special Department for War Crimes, “Orientation criteria for sensitive rules of the road cases”. Morten Bergsmo and others, The Backlog of Core International Crimes Case Files in Bosnia and Herzegovina, FICHL Publication Series No. 3 (2009), pp. 57–86.