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LINDA WERTHEIMER, host:
In neighboring Yugoslavia, people are still coming to terms with the departure of former President Slobodan Milosevic, who was extradited to The Hague on war crimes charges in June. He is not the only political leader to be called to answer for his actions in a foreign court. Israel's prime minister, Ariel Sharon, canceled a trip to Belgium recently. His lawyers are trying to block Belgian courts from charging him with war crimes for allegedly allowing the massacre of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon two decades ago. And three countries want to ask former secretary of State Henry Kissinger about certain US actions during the Cold War. NPR's Michele Kelemen reports on what looks like a new movement: Lawyers Without Borders.
MICHELE KELEMEN reporting:
Human rights groups call it the Pinochet precedent. First, the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested in Europe, then came the indictment of former Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic. Reed Brody of Human Rights Watch is delighted.
Mr. REED BRODY (Human Rights Watch): Until recently, it was said that if you kill one person, you go to jail; if you kill 20 people, you are put in an insane asylum; and if you kill 20,000 people, you're invited to a peace conference. And I think we're beginning, with the arrest of General Pinochet of Chile, the indictment and transfer of Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague, to see an end to that kind of impunity for the worst abuses.
KELEMEN: Belgium has taken this movement a big step forward, exercising what's known as universal jurisdiction, and that's making some governments nervous. For instance, the case now working its way through the Belgian courts has nothing to do with Belgium or Belgians. Survivors of a two-decade-old massacre in Palestinian refugee camps have asked Belgian authorities to use a new law in universal jurisdiction to indict Israel's Ariel...