the real authors of the crime. Similar criticisms were levelled at the majority of the indictments of the Serious Crimes Unit in Timor-Leste, which focused on Timorese militia rather than highranking Indonesian military officials. Focusing on those with the greatest degree of responsibility also fits with the central objective of prosecutions and is responsive to the nature of system crimes. Perpetrators often attempt to justify their crimes in ideological terms; thus, condemning their conduct and persuading them of its unacceptable nature will be most effective if efforts are aimed at those responsible for the formulation of the policies and strategies that led to the crimes. This is not to say that all consideration of pursuing lower-level perpetrators ought to be abandoned. In some cases, targeting subordinates may provide a strategic advantage. However, in the investigation of system crimes, the idea of building up a “pyramid of responsibility” by starting with low-level suspects should be treated with some caution. The use of such an approach may depend on specific legal systems: for example, guilty pleas tend to be more readily available and used as a tactic in common- rather than civil-law systems.18 Most of the convictions at ICTY have relied not on insider testimony, but on the presentation of strong circumstantial evidence indicating knowledge and control on the part of relatively high-ranking officials.19 At the same time, guilty pleas or alternatives to trials may be quicker, cheaper and more effective in establishing certain facts. (Guilty pleas should require a disclosure of the facts and should be presented as admissions rather than as expedient arrangements.) In some situations, it may also be important to include in a prosecutorial strategy charges that reflect particular types of crimes, in order to continue the development of the protections that international criminal law affords. For instance, the ad hoc Tribunals have been essential in prosecuting gender crimes, even though the perpetrators were not necessarily of high rank. A more recent example is charges of recruiting child soldiers and forced marriage included in the indictments in Sierra Leone. However, all of this can be achieved in the context of a targeted prosecutorial strategy. Finally, a clear and limited prosecutorial strategy is useful in budgeting available resources. Trials for system crimes tend to be large and costly, as demonstrated by the ad hoc International Criminal Tribunals. Casting the net too wide will lead to a congestion of the docket and lengthy periods of pretrial detention (as shown in recent domestic prosecutions in Rwanda and Ethio18  uilty pleas are a common-law construct that assist to avoid trial if the accused agrees that he is guilty of the charges in the G indictment. This agreement is usually preceded by a negotiation with the prosecutor. While it is too early to say how the legislation is working in various countries, there are examples from Peru, Chile and Mexico (the last in relation to organized crime, rather than human rights violations) that indicate a number of civil-law jurisdictions prepared to amend traditional positions in order to promote effective prosecutions. 19 In the highly charged ethnic context of the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, it has been difficult to persuade insiders to testify. Other situations may offer more opportunity in this regard.