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International law and genocide: the practical remedy

In a stunning proof of the effectiveness of international legal remedies for genocide, Slobodan Milosevic has died of old age five years into his prosecution at the Hague. He managed to hold out long enough for the prosecution to rest and his defense to begin, but the old ticker wasn't good enough to let him survive through the defense case.

Lesson for the future: if international authorities want to prosecute someone for genocide, they'll have to make sure he's under 50, not overweight, and a nonsmoker. Give him a complete medical workup before bringing charges, and you may be able to close the case before he dies on you. Oh, and see that he exercises during recesses. Sitting in a chair for 5 years listening to people can play hob with the circulatory system.

Notable quotes:

"Chief U.N. war crimes prosecutor Carla Del Ponte said she regretted Milosevic's death because she believed she would have won his conviction. "

`It is a pity he didn't live to the end of the trial to get the sentence he deserved,'' Croatian President Stipe Mesic said.

Personally, I'd go for more immediate remedies for genocide: (1) announce that if it does not halt, tommorrow C-5As will cruise over the intended victims, releasing streams of parachutes. On each will be a Kalashnikov and a bunch of ammunition. (2) If you do capture the guy, forget the Hague. Try him under local law (which is what he'd have violated). Trials aren't for telling the story -- let authors do that. If Hussein were to be given a speedy and public trial in Kurdistan, we'd have a verdict by lunchtime.

UPDATE: Wait, I've got a legal solution to detaining the prisoners in Gitmo. Charge all that we want to detain indefinitely as war criminals, and ask for trial at the Hague. It'd give a legal basis for holding them until proceedings end in, say, four hundred years.

· arms vs. genocide