Shadows across the Path 475ernment offi cials, not even incumbent ones. Even the mightiest are there-
fore potentially within reach of international prosecution. Th is represents
one of the greatest victories for human- rights advocates in their campaign
against the impunity of offi cials for repressive acts. Nor have international
criminal tribunals been slow to exercise this power. It has been noted that
the fi rst sitting head of state to be indicted by an international criminal
court was President Milošević of Serbia, in May 1999 (in the course of the
NATO bombing campaign over Kosovo). His trial in Th e Hague com-
menced in 2002— although it ended indecisively with his sudden death in
2006 in the course of the proceedings.
Th e Milošević indictment was not an isolated incident. In 2003, President
Charles Taylor of Liberia was indicted by a “hybrid” tribunal (as it was
called), specially established by the Sierra Leone government in conjunction
with the UN. Taylor was accused of facilitating various atrocities committed
during the ferocious civil strife that took place in Sierra Leone. He, like
Milošević, was apprehended only aft er leaving offi ce. But once he was in
custody, his trial proceeded to completion. In 2012, he was found guilty and
sentenced to fi ft y years’ imprisonment (though, as of the end of that year,
the case was on appeal).
Th e fi rst indictment of a sitting head of state by the International Crimi-
nal Court occurred in 2009, when an arrest warrant was issued for the presi-
dent of Sudan, Omar al- Bashir. He stood accused of crimes against human-
ity, with genocide later added to the indictment, stemming from atrocities
committed under his rulership in the Darfur region of Sudan. He greeted
the news of his indictment with lighthearted contempt. He jeered that the
indictment was not “worth the ink it is written with” and or ga nized thou-
sands of supporters to burn an image of the Court’s prosecutor in effi gy.
One of Bashir’s aides, in a slightly more mea sured response, dismissed the
Court as “part of the new mechanism of neo- colonialism.”
Th ese were striking events, by any standard. At the same time, though,
opposition to the International Criminal Court was growing. Th e attitude of
the American government was especially striking. It declined to become a
party to the Rome Statute, largely because of opposition to the in de pen-
dence of the prosecutor and to the relatively low role accorded to the UN
Security Council. In addition, it strongly objected to the fact that Ameri-
can nationals could still be tried by the Court, even with the United States