International bounty hunters for war criminals: privatizing the enforcement of justice

Air Force Law Review,  Wntr, 2001  by Christopher M. Supernor

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(87.) Eileen O'Connor, Pentagon denies current framing for Bosnian 'snatch missions' CNN INTERACTIVE WORLD NEWS, http://www9.cnn.com/WORLD/9708/13/bosnian.war.crimina1s/ (Aug. 13, 1997) (copy on file with the Air Force Law Review). Despite the Pentagon's rejection of any legal responsibility to arrest war criminals indicted by the ICTY, NATO troops have arrested a few of the indicted war criminals. NATO's strict stance against actively pursuing indicted war criminals may have softened after General Wesley Clark replaced General George Joulwan as the overall NATO commander. Steven Erlanger, NATO Action Reflects Shift in Tactics, N.Y. TIMES, July 11, 1997, at A5. On July 10, 1997, a British military operation led to the arrest of one indicted war criminal and the killing of another. Id. On Dec. 18, 1997, Dutch troops arrested two war crimes suspects. Hedges, supra note 84, at A20. On Jan. 22, 1998, United States troops arrested war crimes suspect, Goran Jelisic. Mike O'Connor, G.I.'s in Bosnia Make Their First Arrest of a War-Crimes Suspect, N.Y. TIMES, Jan. 23, 1998, at A7. NATO troops have arrested nineteen of the individuals currently in custody before the ICTY. International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia: Key Figures, http://www.un.org/icty/glance/keyfig-e.htm (last modified Mar. 29, 2001) (copy on file with the Air Force Law Review). Thirteen individuals voluntarily surrendered themselves to the ICTY and six others were arrested by domestic law enforcement. Id. Despite these arrests, NATO troops do not actively hunt war criminals, and they are unwilling to make any attempt to capture a well guarded or politically connected war criminal such as Slobodan Milosevic or Ratko Mladic.

(88.) See BEIGBEDER, supra note 3, at 162-163.

(89.) Barbara Crossette, New Sanctions Incite Attacks by Afghans at U.N. Sites, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 16, 1999, at A6.

(90.) Brian Blomquist, Afghans Defy Deadline to Hand over Bin Laden, N.Y. TIMES, Nov. 14, 1999, at Metro 5.

(91.) Afghanistan's Taliban regime has stated that Afghan hospitality makes it impossible to turn a house guest over to his enemies, but it has assured the United States that Bin Laden is under virtual house arrest because of international concerns. Holger Jensen Scripps, Taliban Snubs Hijackers But Won't Hand Over Bin Laden, DESSERT NEWS (Salt Lake City), Jan. 2, 2000, Viewpoint, at AA04.

(92.) Nilas Gunnar Billinger, Report of the Special Swedish Commission on International Police Activities, in POLICING THE NEW WORLD DISORDER: PEACE OPERATIONS AND PUBLIC SECURITY 459, 479 (Robert B. Oakley, et al., eds., 1998). This book is a collection of essays that discuss in detail the role of United Nations civilian police in recent peace operations such as Cambodia, El Salvador, Mozambique, Somalia and Haiti.

(93.) Id. at 39.

(94.) Id.

(95.) Under Article 43 of the United Nations Charter, each member State was required to complete a "special agreement" with the Security Council that governed the type and number of military forces that the nation was obligating itself to provide to the Security Council for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security. U.N. CHARTER art. 43. However, the Security Council has never signed an Article 43 special agreement and does not have its own military forces. Andrew S. Miller, Universal Soldiers: U.N. Standing Armies and the Legal Alternatives, 81 GEO. L.J. 773, 782 (March 1993) (questioning the feasibility of creating a standing U.N. military force and recommending that the UN avoid being drawn into a major debate over this issue). The UN has never had a permanent, standby, or on-call military force acting under UN authority and prospects for one in the near future remain grim. David J. Scheffer, Peacekeeping, Peacemaking, & Peacebuilding: The Role of the United Nations in Global Conflict: Pe rmanent Peacekeeping: The Theoretical & Practical Feasibility of a United Nations Force: United Nations Peace Operations and Prospects for a Standby Force, 28 CORNELL INT'L L.J. 649 (Spring 1995).