“[A] second Nuremberg awaits the practitioners of ethnic cleansing.”
—Lawrence Eagleburger, US Deputy Secretary of State, December 1992. Speaking in reference to crimes committed in the former Yugoslavia
Eagleburger then went on to name ten individuals that the United States government considered war crimes suspects. It was not until 1993, however, that the United Nations authorized a tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and not until 1996 that its first defendant was brought to trial. Did the threat of legal proceedings deter crimes? In Bosnia the answer appears to be "no." Does the creation of international ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, as well as the existence of a permanent international criminal court, render such legal threats a more potent deterrent? That remains to be seen.
