Kudos to the world court

The conviction earlier this month of Charles Taylor for war crimes in Sierra Leone and sentence of 80 years, along with the current prosecution against Ratko Mladic for his alleged role in leading Serbian forces at the slaughter fields of Srebrenica in July 1995 have brought the work of the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague into focus.

While Taylor is saying the 80-year sentence is too long, it's small comfort to the many thousands of Africans who lost family and friends in a conflict directed by and funded on the former strongman's orders.

The prosecution case against Mladic is on hold pending the resolution of a technical glitch wherein rules of discovery were apparently breached by prosecutors. If anything, the snafu shows that the standard of jurisprudence is above reproach, and that the highest standards of judicial process are being adhered to — not to be unexpected in such a tribunal. In the past, the courts in The Hague have brought cases successfully against a string of despicable political and military characters from nasty conflicts around the globe — and that's a good thing. If there is a criticism it is that the court seems powerless in acting against leaders of western nations.