David Scheffer, All the Missing Souls

1. This book presents the author’s personal involvement in the establishment of five war crimes tribunals through his work as senior adviser and counsel to the United States (US) Ambassador to the United Nations (UN) from 1993 to 1996 and then the first-ever US Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues from 1997 to 2001, as well as his reflections over these tribunals. Scheffer views himself both as a US diplomat and a scholar who strives to understand the “credible justice” when writing this book (p. 4). 2. The book is divided into four parts. Part I contains six chapters addressing the two UN ad hoc tribunals, i.e. the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). The six chapters are organized in chronological order. Chapters 1, 4, and 6 focus on the ICTY. Chapter 1 starts with a discussion on whether to establish an international court as a primary method in response to mass atrocities in the Balkans in 1991 and 1992, hoping to deter further atrocity crimes and help build the peace over time. It also touches upon the drafting history of the ICTY Statute, the preparatory work of the ICTY including financial resources and personnel recruitment, and struggles on evidence and information-sharing in ICTY’s early time. Chapter 4 focuses on the violence in Srebrenica in 1995 in spite of ICTY’s functioning, which poses doubt to the tribunal’s potential deterrence effect. Chapter 6 details the weak political will of key NATO States to apprehend war criminals indicted by the ICTY including Kazadzic and Mladic or to enforce ICTY’s request for evidence against Milosevic, which indicates States’ complicated considerations regarding peace and justice. Chapters 2, 3, and 5 relate to the ICTR. Chapter 2 recalls the “western failure” in response to the Rwandan genocide in 1994 as well as the author’s personal regret of his involvement in drafting Presidential Decision Directive 25 (PDD-25), which sets a high threshold for any US-backed UN peacekeeping operation. Afterwards, Scheffer earnestly works to seek accountability for the genocide and regards the establishment of a war crimes tribunal as his pathway toward redemption (p. 68). Chapter 3 explains different proposals advanced by States in seeking credible justice for Rwanda as well as the concerns expressed by the Rwandans. Chapter 5 points out several problems faced by the ICTR including corruption, its ineffective cooperation with local justice, and the temporal jurisdiction that is limited to the genocide in 1994. In this chapter, Scheffer also introduces discussions in a US case over Ntakirutimana’s extradition to the ICTR. Overall, he recognizes ICTR’s contributions to apprehending and trying those responsible for the 1994 Rwandan genocide (p. 123)

Economic Justice · Genocide · International law · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Statute · Tribunal · War crime · Global Peace and Security Dynamics · International Law and Human Rights · Law