Posted by Howard S. Schiffman on July 07, 2001 at 22:38:18:
The highly publicized arraignment this week of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) is an opportunity to reflect upon how far the prosecution of war criminals has come in the past five and a half decades.
After World War II, the war crimes tribunals of Nuremberg and Tokyo ushered in a brand new era of international criminal law and the prosecutions of the individual transgressors of international law became a meaningful part of the landscape of world affairs. Although the political will for other international tribunals was slow to develop after WWII, due in large measure to the Cold War, some states, including the United States, Israel, France and Canada, began to exercise their power to try war criminals in their national courts under the theory of "universal jurisdiction." Such notable prosecutions as Adolf Eichmann in Israel and Klaus Barbie in France helped advance and refine the ability of individual states to prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide. More recently, the attempt by Spain to extradite Augusto Pinochet helped challenge the notion of the immunity of a head of state in a foreign court.
With the end of the Cold War and fresh atrocities at hand in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, in the mid-1990's the United Nations established tribunals of specific jurisdiction to redress international crimes in those areas. In 1998, a broad spectrum of states approved the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court (ICC) When it enters into force the ICC will be a court with more general jurisdiction to try the most serious international crimes of genocide, aggression, crimes against humanity and war crimes.
As for Milosevic and the ICTY, after dozens of indictments, many of which have already come to trial, the ICTY reached a milestone by securing the presence of the former Serb leader. His defiance at his arraignmnet nothwithstanding, a trial of Milosevic will be an important symbol for international justice.
To suggest a contrary, yet somewhat compelling perspective, Milosevic and his supporters may offer a grain of truth when they point to the relativity of the concepts of war crimes and aggression. Do the supporters of strong international criminal jurisdiction have entirely clean hands in this regard? Could the finger someday be pointed their way? War as an endeavor is rarely conducted with probity and rectitude. Could all of the US actions in Cambodia, NATO actions in Kosovo, UN actions in Iraq withstand scrutiny? This possibility is something most observers dismiss out of hand or prefer not to think about. One must watch the development of international criminal jurisprudence in this century to see how the answer to these question evolve.
As always, we welcome your comments for further discussion.
Howard S. Schiffman, Esq.
Co-Founder and Administrator
InternationalLawHelp.com