11 Mar Milosevic Is Dead
11.03.06
|
3 Comments
Slobodan Milosevic is dead. The final chapter in European liberation from Communist rule is over. If you must read the details of his death, go to the BBC here. But far more interesting is their insightful obituary of the butcher of the Balkins. Paddy Ashdown has it right, “There is no doubt that of the evil that stalked the Balkans for the best part of a decade one way or another, one of the primary authors was Slobodan Milosevic.”
What would international law look like today if the great European revolt against communism had not been tainted by the war in Yugoslavia? Would we have a doctrine of humanitarian intervention? With no ICTY, would there be an ICC? Would the United States have acted differently in Iraq in the absence of Security Council authorization? Imagine the counterfactual of a world without Milosevic.
Roger, I would also say this may be the final chapter in the ICTY’s attempt to bring some sort of closure to the Balkan wars. They had Milosevic for 6 years and failed to bring his trial to a conclusion. Did they really put an end to the culture of impunity by putting him on an endless trial that ended up killing him?
Readers of Opinio Juris can find a longer reaction to Milosevic’s death on Transitional Justice Forum here. (http://tj-forum.org/archives/001780.html).
Julian – it’s hardly fair to say that the tribunal ended up “killing him”. It’s also hardly helpful – is it? Serbia is sharply divided over this man and indeed over the truth of what really happened during the war. Will the attitude that the case ended up killing him serve only to fuel the fire against the notion and efficacy of the ICTY in Serbia? I think that we need to start to look very seriously at whether the ICTY is actually doing any good for the cause of reconciliation in the former Yugoslavia. Unfortunately I find myself with more questions than answers.