Balkan Justice: The Story Behind the First International War Crimes Trial Since Nuremberg Book

Balkan Justice provides the inside story of the United Nations' Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal, charged with conducting the first international war crimes trials since World War II. The pages are filled with behind-the-scenes information gleaned from the author's days as an official at the U.S. Department of State and from subsequent interviews with the key players involved in this international judicial drama. The first part of the book details how the tribunal barely survived attempts by the major powers first to block the collection of evidence, then to delay the selection of a prosecutor, and finally to starve the tribunal of funding. From investigation to judgment, the second part recounts the initial case to be tried before the tribunal - that of Dusko Tadic, a Bosnian Serb pub owner accused of murdering a dozen people, beating and torturing scores of his Muslim former neighbors, and raping several young girls ... all in the name of "ethnic cleansing." Billed by the international media as "the trial of the century," the Tadic case was punctuated by gripping testimony of atrocities, controversial judicial rulings, recanting star witnesses, and performances worthy of an Academy Award. What emerges is a compelling account of the historic trial which documented the full horror of the inhuman acts committed in the former Yugoslavia.