My latest piece over at The Commentator looks at why it took so long to arrest Ratko Mladic, and why our leaders tend to opt for gradual escalation rather than decisive blows to the head: In late 1996 I sent a secret telegram to London arguing that the massively expensive […]
Here is leading human rights lawyer Geoffrey Robertson QC talking about the Mladic arrest, in standard terms. Apart from this: He could – and should – have been taken into custody between 1996 and his disappearance in 2002, but diplomats then did not trust international justice: "The capture of Karadzic […]
Researching a speech about Poland I came across the wise words of Thomas Banacek, a 1970s American TV Polish/American freelance insurance investigator who solved all sorts of improbable mysteries in part by delivering droll proverbs supposedly of Polish origin: When the wolf is chasing your sleigh, toss him a raisin cookie but […]
Here’s a comment I have posted on the Serbian hardcore Novi Standard website where lots of effort is being devoted to bewailing the arrest of Ratko Mladic: Not sure I understand the point here. Why is Serbia or the wider Serbian idea weaker if Mladic is finally brought to face the […]
Asks Dan Hannan MEP. He favours one or other but not ICTY as it is too slow and (he believes) too compromised in different ways. Here is an earlier (quite good) piece I wrote about ICTY and the regional War Crimes Tribunals in former Yugoslavia. This Mladic one is just too […]
Here’s the full judgement in the Sharon Shoesmith appeal. Basically, she succeeded in getting her dismissal by Haringey Borough (London) proclaimed unlawful by the Appeal Court for a number of solid procedural reasons which together amounted (said the Court) to unfair treatment. I liked these passages, going to the issue of […]
This rubbish (below) has just appeared in my Inbox. Names and email addresses deleted in the unlikely event they are real. (The reference to Pavarotti reminds me of this famous occasion in Mostar.) Dear Sir, I am emailing you, as I currently have a client who has possibly been defrauded of […]
When Radovan Karadzic was finally arrested in mid-2008 I echoed here a telegram I sent to London from Belgrade in 2001 following the sudden transfer to ICTY of Slobodan Milosevic provocatively titled: "Is Milosevic Innocent?" My piece "Is Karadzic Innocent?" made the point that it would be easier for ICTY […]
Here is the text of President Obama’s speech in Westminster Hall. Well received more for powerful delivery and ‘feel-good factor’ than substance. Before he left Washington the President gave an important speech on the upheavals across the Arab region and what it all meant for the Middle East. Text here. […]
Martin Kettle of the Guardian is having a bad run of form. First this clunker about the Coalition’s plans to cut back of Labour’s oppressive legacy. And now this one, arguing that any traffic offence committed a few years ago by Cabinet Minister Chris Huhne is so puny as to […]
