For the charge to stick, there must be evidence of the quality that would convict on any other charge, and the court played fast and loose with the very concept of joint criminal enterprise. This is the basic point of the book: no evidence worthy of the name was ever produced against Milosevic, despite huge expenditure and despite the arbitrary extensions of time the prosecution was granted in the hope that something really damning would turn up to prove its case. Nothing ever did. Does anyone doubt that, had there been knock-down evidence against Milosevic, it would not have been trumpeted around the world? In the event, many of the prosecution’s star witnesses gave evidence that exculpated Milosevic entirely.

I think this is a very important book — far more important than its immediate subject matter might suggest — because it exposes the very odd, unpleasant, combination of unctuous self-righteousness on the one hand and lack of scruple on the other of the current Western political classes, of all political stripes, which itself is a reflection of a deep malaise in society. It is a spiritual sickness that extends far beyond The Hague tribunal: it has entered the fabric of our daily lives.

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