Judging Wars, Creating Truths

Slobodan Milosevic began his defence at The Hague by characterizing the trial as a sham: ‘I wish to say that the entire world knows that this is a political process. So we are not here speaking about legal procedures that evolve into political ones. This is a political process to begin with, and as far as what I would prefer, I would prefer the truth.’ Indeed, it is the promise of law to deliver not only justice but also a form of truth. So, as war-crimes trials are set up, they are meant to offer the wounded community retribution and vindication, punishment and justice, restoration and deterrence, and, importantly, a final and authoritative account of the truth of events. The purpose of such trials is as much to enlighten the innocents of today as it is to punish the criminals of yesterday. As a pedagogical event, a war crimes trial certainly resuscitates history transmuting it into a judicial present by telling a compelling story of human suffering. As such, it is a work of memory as well as law.