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Vladimir Vukcevic has been the chief war crimesprosecutor in Serbia since the National Assembly electedhim to the new post in 2003. Beginning in 2006, Vukcevic,a former deputy state prosecutor, also coordinatedSerbia’s “action team” for the arrests of the final fugitivesfrom The Hague. The failure to arrest Karadzic andanother high-profile defendant, Ratko Mladic, the Serbmilitary leader in Bosnia during the war, had long beenan embarrassment for both the Serbian government andthe ICTY, as well as a source of tension between domesticofficials and European leaders. The ICTY has mostly beendependent on governments of the former Yugoslavia toarrest and turn over suspects, and the European Unionconditioned Serbia’s candidacy for EU membership oncompliance to these obligations. Last year, Serb securityservices arrested both Mladic and the last ICTY fugitiveindictee, Goran Hadzic, a Serb leader in Croatia duringthe war, and transferred them to the tribunal. In February,then-President Boris Tadic presented Vukcevic and theaction team with an honor on Serbia’s day of statehood inrecognition of their work.In the domestic War Crimes Chamber, Vukcevic and histeam of eight deputies have also notched some impressivetrial victories, with final convictions of 58 individuals for atotal of 668 years in prison. Most of the cases have targetedSerbs despite long-held concerns that national courts in theregion might be unable to prosecute their ethnic majorities.The office has received praise from a range of internationalobservers, including officials from the ICTY, the EuropeanUnion and the U.S. But the office has also faced criticismat home for a dearth of cases against higher-level armyand police officials who have political influence in Serbia;most of the defendants have been lower-level offendersor members of paramilitary and territorial defense unitsoutside the formal state apparatus. Recent investigationshave also been complicated by allegations that the witnessprotection unit for war crimes cases, housed within thepolice forces, has been pressuring witnesses not to testify.The harshest critic of the office is Natasa Kandic, whois among the most renowned human rights advocates inEurope and the head of the Humanitarian Law Center,a nongovernmental organization in Belgrade. Kandicbelieves that the prosecutor's office lacks the political willto prosecute higher-ranking officials. Vukcevic's officehas publically disputed this notion, contending that itresists political pressures and will bring cases against anyindividuals “regardless of their respective positions” if itcan do so based on the evidence.“The very fact that a number of Serbs have been convictedfor war crimes against non-Serbs, that the Serbian judiciaryand the state have taken a stand behind the victims inthese cases and sent the perpetrators to prison, that isvery important for reconciliation,” Ivan Jovanovic, theBelgrade-based war crimes monitor at the Organizationfor Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, said inan interview. “But certainly there will be many people whodeserve to be prosecuted for what they did during the warswho will pass away in their own beds, surrounded by theirfamily members, without spending a single day in prison.And that is not a good thing.”The mixed results and ongoing challenges in Serbiaundoubtedly offer lessons for future accountability effortsin turbulent post-conflict domestic settings, particularly forefforts that may benefit from complementary relationshipsbetween international and domestic tribunals – as the ICTYand the former Yugoslav republics have attempted. Suchscenarios are particularly relevant in the age of the ICC.Despite its jurisdiction over recent conflicts, the ICC is a selfdescribed“court of last resort,” with national courts obligatedto try their own cases whenever possible. Just what thoselessons are remains a matter of debate, both within Serbiaand internationally among organizations that have a stake inpromoting prosecutions for serious human rights violations.The uncertainty of Serbia’s commitment to confrontingits past may have intensified with the recent election to thepresidency of Tomislav Nikolic, the leader of the SerbianProgressive Party who defeated Tadic, an official widelyseen as pro-Western and generally praised for prioritizingcooperation with the ICTY. Tadic had taken other stepsto recognize Serb war crimes by attending ceremonies atthe sites of Srebrenica and Vukovar, the site of anothermassacre, in Croatia. Nikolic, in contrast, was once a highrankingmember of the ultranationalist Serbian RadicalParty, whose former leader, Vojislav Seselj, is also on trialat The Hague for alleged wartime crimes. Though he hassoftened his nationalism in recent years and favors EUintegration, Nikolic immediately caused concern after hiselection by stating that the Srebrenica massacre did notamount to genocide. Milosevic’s former spokesman, IvicaDacic, is now Serbia’s Prime Minister.With all suspects finally in custody, the ICTYestimates that all trials and appeals will finish by 2016.In an interview, Vukcevic declined to estimate how longthe domestic system will need to fulfill its mandate,though he did not think it would take decades, as someobservers have thought."What matters most ... is the political willingness – or thereadiness of society – that a consensus be reached over thisissue," Vukcevic said. "I believe that, by having the ICTYindictees transferred to The Hague, we have demonstratedas a society our readiness for catharsis."T h e S r e b r e n i c a - P o t o c a r i M e m o r i a l a n dCemetery, in Potocari, Bosnia-Herzegovina, is a good placefor visitors new to the region to begin to understand someof the unresolved facets and lingering resentments of thewars. The memorial, with significant donations from theU.S. and other foreign governments, opened in 2003 atthe site of the U.N. base in Potocari, where Muslims hadL A W D R A G O N 40 I s s u e 13