This resulted in the Bosnian Genocide and the deaths of some 100,000 people by 1995.
In 1993, the U.N. Security Council established the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at The Hague, in the Netherlands; it was the first international tribunal since Nuremberg and the first to have a mandate to prosecute the crime of genocide.
In its more than 20 years of operation,
the ICTY indicted 161 individuals of crimes committed during the Balkan wars. Among the prominent leaders indicted were the former Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and the former Bosnian Serb military commander Ratko Mladic.
While Milosevic died in prison in 2006 before his lengthy trial concluded, the ICTY convicted Karadzic of war crimes in 2016 and sentenced him to 40 years in prison.
And in 2017, in its final major prosecution, the ICTY found Mladic—known as the “Butcher of Bosnia” for his role in the wartime atrocities, including the massacre of more than 7,000 Bosniak men and boys at Srebenica in July 1995—guilty of genocide and other crimes against humanity, and sentenced him to life in prison.
RWANDAN GENOCIDE
. As with the former Yugoslavia, the international community did little to stop the Rwandan Genocide while it was occurring, but that fall the U.N. expanded the mandate of the ICTY to include the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), located in Tanzania.
The Yugoslav and Rwandan tribunals helped clarify exactly what types of actions could be classified. Genocidal, as well as how criminal responsibility for these actions should be established
THE INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT (ICC)
Since then, the ICC has dealt with cases against leaders in the Congo and in Sudan, where brutal acts committed since 2003 by the janjawid militia against civilians in the western region of Darfur have been condemned by numerous international officials (including former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell) as genocide.
Debate continues over the ICC’s rightful jurisdiction, as well as its ability to determine what exactly constitute genocidal actions. For example, in the case of Darfur, some have argued that it is impossible to prove. Intent to eradicate the existence of certain groups, as opposed to displacing them.
Despite such ongoing issues, the establishment of the ICC at the dawn. 21st century reflected a growing international consensus behind efforts. Prevent and punish the horrors of genocide.