NYT Op/Ed: Taking Genocide To Court

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/opinion/05mon1.html?hp

Editorial
Taking Genocide to Court

Published: March 5, 2007
Genocide moves swiftly, kills promiscuously and keeps finding new perpetrators, despite the world’s repeated vows of “never again.”

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Yet short of the international military interventions that never seem to come in time, the incremental enforcement of international law is one of the most important tools available for establishing accountability and deterring future genocides.

Genocide became an international crime almost 60 years ago. But no country was ever prosecuted for it until Bosnia accused Serbia of direct responsibility for the murder of nearly 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica. The World Court, which rules on disputes between nations, concluded that genocide did take place, and that while the Serbian government of that period had not directly ordered the murders, it “could and should” have acted to stop them, as the United Nations Convention on Genocide requires.

That nuanced distinction, based on evidence collected by the special tribunal that tried Slobodan Milosevic, the former Serbian leader, and other individuals accused of Balkan war crimes, spared Serbia from costly financial reparations. But it also established the official complicity of the former Serbian government.

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