Slobodan's Last Waltz

With the ICJ ruling corresponding roughly with the 1 year anniversary of Milosevic's death; Slobo has certainly made the news rounds lately!

An op ed on the ICJ ruling and Milosevic:
Article

I don't really agree with this statement though:

The court's judgment has broad implications. It amounts to a posthumous
acquittal of Mr. Milosevic for genocide in Bosnia.

For one, as other analysts have explained the ICJ ruling does not have a direct correspondence to Milosevic's guilt or not guilt. Only the judges in the Milosevic ICTY case know how the evidence that was introduced (including the evidence that was submitted in closed session) was perceived by then.
This of course does not mean that the judges would not have found Mr. Milosevic not guilty of genocide. While most analyses that I've looked at noted that the prosecution proved the other 60 odd crimes against humanity and war crimes Milosevic was accused of, there have been debate amongst legal experts and Balkan specialists over whether the prosecution proved the intent to destroy, that is necessary to commit genocide.
The point however is that the ICJ ruling can not be read as an absolute sign that Milosevic would have, or would not have, been acquitted of genocide.
Of course, whether he would have been given the distinct honor of being labeled a genocidaire by an international court is a moot point now that his case is null and void; and with the exception of a curious mixture of ultra-nationalists right wing extremists; and ultra-leftists extremists; Milosevic is still a mass murderer.

Defining genocide and the law

The opinion piece of Martin Shaw in The Guardian.


These debates are nothing new, during the Milosevic case, there were similar debates over whether the Prosecution had proven Milosevic's legal guilt for genocide; and whether the bar to legally prove genocide was impossible to meet.

That other decision...

I don't think I can make a good segway between the ICJ and the Oscars; so I'll just jump right into it:

Hearing (and seeing, at this time, unfortunately only clips) of Forrest Whitaker's performance as the mad man of Uganda himself, Idi Amin, who also starred in the brilliant documentary about himself, Idi Amin Dada. I was wondering about the prospects of anyone making a movie about the butcher of the Balkans, Slobodan Milosevic?

As interesting as it would be to imagine what Hollywood star would portray Milosevic on the big screen, I doubt that anyone has any incling to make a movie, for one, Milosevic is still a recent event, perhaps too recent for any Hollywood film director to feel really comfortable making a flim. Secondly, to put it bluntly, Milosevic is too boring for the average movie goer. Idi Amin (allegedly) ate people! Saddaam had statues on practically every street corner made of him, etc, etc. By comparision, Milosevic was a smart dictator; and while his rule spelled utter disaster for the people in the Balkans and led to tremendous amount of suffering and death; Milosevic as a person was pretty lackluster, nothing too dramatic for an actor to sink his teeth into.

Mr. Milosevic's Ghost

Although his "untimely" death (and untimely in the sense that it did not allow for a verdict to be rendered; for the people of the Balkans they would be much better off had Mr. Milosevic passed away almost two decades before he ultimately did) rendered the case against him legally obsolete. Nevertheless, Milosevic's presence isn't completely obsolete as Observer at Neretva River ponders what the ICJ verdict has to say about Mr. Milosevic's legal guilt for genocide.
And some days ago, Andras from the justwatch-l discussion group noted that the ICTY has not had unrestricted evidence to the Serbian government's files; and that because the case never actually came down to a verdict, there is no way of knowing whether the ICTY could effectively prove Milosevic's legal guilt.