Chapter 13, Lemkin's Courtroom Legacy Summary

When Milosevic arrived at the War Crimes Tribunal, he became the 39th Yugoslav war crimes suspect behind UN bars. Although he was initially indicted only for crimes against humanity, the indictment was broadened to include genocide in Bosnia. Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic was also in custody for carrying out the Srebrenica atrocities. He was the highest-ranking military officer to be tried since 1945 in an international setting. At issue was not only his individual responsibility but whether Serb forces had committed genocide.

Although the term genocide was created over fifty years ago, it was not until the creation of the UN criminal tribunal that anyone to be punished for committing it. The creation of the 1993 International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia helped to form the 1994 UN court responsible for trying the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide.

The first...