Justice, Power, and the Realities of Interdependence: Lessons from the Milosevic and Hussein Trials

摘要

On September 30, 1992, I attended a fateful meeting at the Intercontinental Hotel in Zagreb, Croatia. A recent graduate of law school, I felt privileged to be part of a high-level diplomatic mission entrusted with investigating humanitarian law violations in the former Yugoslavia. We had been dispatched by the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) in response to the horrific accounts of "ethnic cleansing" that had shattered Europe's post-Cold War euphoria. Like many others, I was outraged by the radical evil unfolding in the Balkans, and in my youthful idealism I wanted justice to be done. Yet, as Ambassador Hans Corell of Sweden opened the meeting, there was a feeling that we were unwitting participants in a political farce. The specter of genocide once again haunted Europe and there was no resolve to intervene. If anything, Slobodan Milosevic was considered indispensable to stability in the Balkans and appeasement of his regime was the prevailing policy. Against this backdrop I felt somehow that our mission was merely a pretension of concern.