2008 was a year of dramatic developments in war crimes law. There were major events in the prosecutions of Radovan Karadzic, once the world's most wanted man; Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the architect of the 9/11 attacks; and Charles and Chucky Taylor. The International Criminal Court handed down a historic indictment of Sudanese leader Col. Omar Al-Bashir for crimes against humanity in Darfur. And Thursday, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda had sentenced army colonel Theoneste Bagosora to life in prison for genocide. New atrocities arose with equal rapidity, however, from the terrorist attack in Mumbai and the war in Georgia to continuing conflict in Darfur.

Below, we summarize a very eventful year, and provide some predictions for 2009.

Happy Holidays,

Arthur Traldi and Daniel Graeber

BOSNIA

The biggest news to come out of Bosnia in 2008 was the arrest of Radovan Karadzic, wartime president of the Republika Srpska , the Serbian political entity in Bosnia. Karadzic stands accused of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes stemming from the 1990s conflict in Bosnia. He is charged, most importantly, with ordering the most brutal massacre of the war, the genocide at Srebrenica.

Karadzic, described as “The World's Most Wanted Man,” was living under an assumed identity as a faith healer with his mistress and her family.

Crowds of protesters thronged the streets of Belgrade following his arrest expressing support for him, as well as opposition to America, the West and the current Serbian government.

Karadzic initially refused to enter a plea before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, ICTY. He is representing himself and proceeding through pre-trial litigation after a not guilty plea was entered on his behalf. He has repeated his assertions that several Western diplomats, includingRichard Holbrooke - the primary architect of the Dayton accords - have promised impunity and one trial judge has already been replaced in the case.

The trial will be an enormous challenge. Karadzic, acting as his own attorney, will have every opportunity to turn the proceedings into a circus. The credibility of the ICTY, already on shaky ground in the Balkans, is very much at stake. Meanwhile, Karadzic is interfering with the prosecutions of his old allies who are implicated in ethnic cleansing campaigns by testifying on their behalf.

The Karadzic trial may be included in a long list of factors that may threaten stability in the Balkans, including tensions in Bosnia, the independence of Kosovo and the difficult EU integration process. Accordingly, developments in Karadzic's trial will be watched closely, not just by the victims, but also by those observing the potential impacts in an already-tense region.

“DUCH”

The leader of the notorious S-21 Khmer Rouge prison camp, Kaing Guek Eav, or “Duch,” faced a Cambodian tribunal for atrocities related to the death of nearly 2 million people.

The 66 year-old Duch, a former math teacher, led the Tual Sleng prison, or S-21, where over 14,000 people were tortured and killed under his authority.

Judges in August ordered him to stand trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Conspiracy charges were thrown out in December. He has been largely cooperative with the tribunal, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.

Duch will be the first member of the Khmer Rouge to face trial. Five senior members were arrested in 2007. His trial is expected to commence in May.The Khmer Rouge ran a quasi-eugenics campaign in Cambodia from 1975-1979. The crimes perpetrated by the regime were depicted in the 1984 film, The Killing Fields.

Already limping along, and nearly three decades after the atrocities occurred, the Khmer Rouge tribunal may finally move forward in 2009.

CHARLES TAYLOR

The Hague proceeded with its first case involving charges against a then-acting head of an African nation in the trial of former Liberian President Charles Taylor.

Taylor is charged in international court with 11 counts of crimes against humanity, war crimes, conscripting child soldiers and sexual slavery. He allegedly backed the Revolutionary United Front rebels in Sierra Leone in an effort to control the regions lucrative diamond trade.

RUF rebels conscripted child soldiers using heroin to condition them into service. RUF's Joseph Marzah, or “Zigzag,” told the U.N.-backed Special Court for the Sierra Leone Taylor had encouraged fighters to “play with human blood.”

Taylor's defense team says the trial at The Hague is a show trial meant to create sympathy for the victims, though they do not deny the charges.

In a related story, Charles Taylor's son “Chucky,” a commander in his father's army, was convicted of torture in an American federal court in the first prosecution under the Extraterritorial Torture Statute in the United States.

With allegations and concerns mounting over the atrocities in several African nations and the alleged involvement of national leadership, if Charles Taylor can face justice, perhaps the international human rights regime will make progress in 2009.

DARFUR

The genocide in Darfur continued through 2008 and while the conflict has diminished slightly, violence against civilians continues. Indeed, Oxfam reports that as many as 300,000 people lost their homes this year and attacks on aid workers were at an all-time high.

The International Criminal Court brought indictments against two prominent figures allegedly involved in the genocide in Darfur; Janjaweed leader Ali Kushayb, and humanitarian affairs minister Ahmad Harun. The Prosecutor's office sought an indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir.

As we’ve noted, the Bashir indictment has hit some roadblocks. While it has had a dramatic impact on the government and created some domestic dissent, the African Union has rallied around the Sudanese leader and, to this point, the indictments have generally floundered.

Next year will mark the five-year anniversary of a U.S. House resolution declaring the Darfur conflict a genocide. Whether 2009 will bring concrete steps toward ending the conflict remains uncertain.

MUMBAI

On Nov. 26, 2008, terrorists affiliated with the Lashkar e-Tayyiba group, LeT, attacked a train station in Mumbai, a Jewish community center, the Taj Mahal and Oberoi hotels, a move theater, hospital and the Leopold Café, killing two hundred in the attacks.

Indian security services traced several of the attackers to Pakistan, creating tensions between the two nuclear-armed nations and prompting significant pressure from Washington and New Delhi on Islamabad to bring the perpetrators to justice. At least one of the alleged ringleaders has been apprehended in a camp administered by an organization tied to LeT in the tiny Pakistani village of Shawai Nala, and the leader of LeT is under house arrest.

Pakistan has historically used militant fundamentalists to some extent, notably through its intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, ISI. The Asia Times reported initially that the Mumbai attacks had grown out of an earlier, less ambitious ISI plan. The story does not appear to be confirmed elsewhere and the Pakistanis have made some high-level arrests related to the attacks, but if ISI was involved, the repercussions on regional relations would be difficult to restrain.

Needless to say, the implications of this atrocity will last well into 2009.

PROSECUTIONS OF TERRORISTS

Salim Ahmed Hamdan, the former driver for Osama bin Laden, was convicted of providing material support to terrorism and sentenced to time served, plus six months. Hamdan had been the lead plaintiff in a landmark Supreme Court Case, which held the Combatant Status Review Tribunals at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, as proposed in 2006, provided inadequate procedural protections for the detainees. Hamdan was subsequently released in November to Yemeni custody to serve out the remainder of his sentence.Another Guantanamo defendant, Ali Hamza, was convicted and sentenced to life.

Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, and his co-defendants had a hearing in early December where they entered, and then withdrew, guilty pleas. Mohammed, who had a well-publicized preliminary hearing earlier this year, made clear in an earlier statement he does not dispute any of the charges against him.

The guilty pleas are on hold until the presiding judge, Col. Stephen Henley, can determine what impact a guilty plea would have on a possible death sentence. Section 949(m)(b)(1)(C) of the Military Commissions Act directs the accused must be “convicted by the concurrence of all the members (of the military jury) present at the time the vote is taken” for all death penalty cases.

Since the court has not yet opined whether a guilty plea averts the operation of Section 949(m)(b)(1)(C), the parties will file briefs on the issue. While the prosecution and the defendants appear to agree the death penalty is appropriate, the sentence will not clearly be legal until and unless the court says Section 949 permits capital punishment in guilty plea cases.

IRAQ

A bi-partisan Senate report concluded American officials were responsible for extraordinary interrogations committed during the Iraq war and at Guantanamo Bay, while a former Iraqi official was sentenced to death.

A report by Sens. Carl Levin, D-Mich. and John McCain, R-Ariz., found former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top U.S. officials responsible for harsh treatment of prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib prison facilities.

The treatment included the use of stress positions and water-boarding, controversial tactics considered
torture by some.

On the part of the Iraqis, a tribunal in Baghdad sentenced “Chemical” Ali Hassan al-Majid for atrocities committed against Shiites who staged an uprising in 1991 following the U.S.-led liberation of Kuwait. The Shiites in the south said they had expected U.S. backing in the rebellion, the Shaaban Intifada, but American troops withdrew, leaving Saddam to put down the uprising.

Majid received a death sentence earlier for crimes committed during the Anfal campaign.

Iraq and the United States concluded a controversial Status of Forces Agreement, which, among other things, calls for the withdrawal of U.S. military forces no later than Dec. 31, 2011. With the U.N. mandate in Iraq expiring at the end of the year, Baghdad will have greater authority, and greater responsibilities in 2009. We will be watching closely to see how Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki handles these new tests.

GEORGIA

Major conflict between Russia and Georgia erupted in August over the breakaway republic of South Ossetia, resulting in allegations of war crimes on both sides.

Amnesty International in October said it had obtained satellite photos that show evidence of ethnic cleansing in certain areas during the conflict. The chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, Luis Moreno Ocampo, said his office would examine the claims. Meanwhile, Georgia sued Russia in the International Court of Justice over the conflict.

Amnesty and several other rights groups recounted eyewitness testimony of the targeting of civilians during 14 hours of attacks on the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, and Russian military operations in the Georgian city of Gori.

South Ossetia and the northeastern region of Abkhazia broke from Georgia in the 1990s following the collapse of the former Soviet Union. Georgia launched a military offensive in August in an effort to reclaim the region following months of intervention on both sides.

As Europe struggles to ease itself from its dependency on Russian natural resources, the former Soviet satellites may develop into a powder keg waiting to explode as the global economy turns sour in 2009.

RWANDA

The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, ICTR, announced historic verdicts in the trial of four senior leaders of the genocide - Colonel Theoneste Bagosora, the Rwandan minister of defense during the genocide; Lieutenant Colonel Anatole Nsengiyumva, commander of the military sector of Gisenyi, in northern Rwanda; Major Aloys Ntabakuze, commander of the Para commando battalion; and Brigadier General Gratien Kabiligi, chief of military operations at the general staff headquarters. AllAfrica notes the trial included 408 days of hearings and 1,554 separate pieces of evidence.

Meanwhile, the tribunal continues to pursue top genocide suspect Felicien Kabuga. Chief prosecutor Hassan Jallow asserted to the U.N. Security Council that Kabuga is in hiding in Kenya, which has created conflict between the ICTR and the Kenyan government. Early in 2008, Kabuga had expressed willingness to surrender to the Rwandan government, but more than six months later had not followed through on his offer.

IT's THE ECONOMY, STUPID!

The global economy descended into a near universal recession in 2008 and though the immediate effects were not felt in the war crimes arena, it was evident on the margins.

Poverty may be linked inextricably to violent struggles for power. Former Liberian President Charles Taylor was charged with 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for his attempt to seize control over the regional diamond trade. The conflict between Russia and Georgia over the breakaway republic of South Ossetia, meanwhile, was linked to Russia's aggressive attempts to influence the European energy market as Georgia plays host to the second-longest oil pipeline in the world, the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline.

A report by the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime found crime was “was both the cause and consequence of poverty, insecurity and underdevelopment,” with each factor exacerbating the other in a grievous spiral.

If the economic crisis worsens, industrialized nations will pull back on their spending, which will trickle down to developing nations, sending them further into famine and poverty and possibly creating the circumstances for conflict.

HOLY LAND FOUNDATION

In a less-publicized case, five senior leaders of the Holy Land Foundation were convicted of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, in this case Hamas. Numerous other Islamic organizations were cited as ‘unindicted co-conspirators.’ The implications for those unindicted co-conspirators , and the reaction from the Islamic community if the Justice Department goes after them , are a vitally important and under-reported story.

THE LIMITATIONS OF WAR CRIMES LAW

This year brought stark reminders that the mere establishment of international treaties barring war crimes and other atrocities, and venues for their prosecution, does not always translate into action against violations of the law.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon spoke in July of the notion of the “responsibility to protect,” a concept embraced at the 2005 World Summit. This responsibility suggests states forfeit the right to be free from intervention if they are not meeting their obligations to sovereignty.

This concept, however, tends to take second place behind considering the rights inherent in the sovereignty. Historically, the perpetrators of grievous atrocities face justice or consequence only after they have lost power. Despite the mantra of “never again,” atrocities are generally left to continue out of deference to sovereignty and limited international interest in risking lives and money to intervene.

PREDICTIONS FOR 2009

President-elect Barack Obama takes office Jan, 20 with a variety of challenges that will impact not only the international war crimes regime, but the direction of the nation as well.

With several of the Guantanamo cases migrating to the civilian court system, we predict the swift closure of the naval detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, as Obama promised during his campaign. It is not clear yet where prisoners will be transferred, or whether they will be uniformly tried in civilian courts or through the courts-martial system. Regardless, several high-profile prosecutions, including that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his codefendants, will be pending when Obama takes office. This issue will require the new Administration's immediate attention.

We predict the arrest this year of Serbian general Ratko Mladic, who would then join Karadzic in standing trial before ICTY. The Serbian government under Boris Tadic has sought friendlier relations with the West, and will likely yield to pressure to locate and turn over Mladic in return for further progress on the road to EU accession.

Finally, we predict an unfortunate decrease in multilateral action to prevent atrocities across the world if the global recession continues. As nations worldwide are forced to pull back sharply on planned investments, we are concerned that humanitarian missions in distant corners of the world will be perceived as luxuries, and so placed among the first budget items to be cut.