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88 Int'l Rev. Red Cross 5 (2006)

handle is hein.journals/intlrcs88 and id is 1 raw text is: March 2006 has been a black month for the UN tribunal authorities in The Hague. Not only has the nationalist Serb war criminal Milan Babic committed suicide in his prison cell, but the man against whom Babic testified in 2002, Slobodan Miloievic - the first head of state to be indicted for war crimes - has also died. Milogevic's trial was being seen as a crucial test of international law. The former Yugoslav president's death doubtless diminishes the legacy of the most important court to be established in Europe since the end of the Second World War. Despite a four-year trial, the world will never know with legal certainty whether the genocide charge against him would have been proved. The lack of any trial of the still fugitive war crimes suspects Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadi further undermines confidence in war crimes justice generally. The names of sentenced war criminals such as Tadic, Jelisic, Nikolic and Blagkic have left their mark on the history of law, bringing about substantial developments in the legal domain. But the absence of the most important suspects bearing the overall political and military responsibility during the war in Bosnia carries a much higher cost, not only for the perception of all the international tribunals but also for the broader objectives of international criminal law. The principle that individuals are and can be held accountable for violations of the law of war dates back to early civilization. International criminal courts to address the problem of war crimes gained force after the Nuremburg and Tokyo trials, instituted to deal with the major crimes committed by the Nazis and Japanese military leaders in the Second World War. Those trials took place after military victory and unconditional surrender. They were simultaneously a reminder that the existing international legal structure did not have a standing body with the means or jurisdiction to prosecute such crimes. States bear the primary responsibility for prosecuting and sentencing their own criminals, including those who have committed international crimes. The record is disastrous with respect to domestic efforts to punish those universal crimes, and national prosecution tends more to be inversely proportional to the violations committed in wartime. Non-state warring parties shamelessly copy this behaviour. Furthermore, though firmly anchored in international law, application of the principle of universal jurisdiction has remained disputed. It won and lost prominence with Belgium's 1993 law, reduced in scope ten years later - a step not 5

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