THE HAGUE: The International Criminal Court will get going next year. Chris Stephen in The Hague examines the prospects for international justice
Slobodn Milosevic has been making the war crimes headlines this year, but 2003 is going to belong to that other Hague trial chamber, the International Criminal Court, which will shortly open for business.
The ICC's worldwide brief has already caused a rift between the United States, its main opponent, and the European Union, its main supporter. This rift will deepen once the new court starts work.
Three possible flashpoints are already in its sights: Columbia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Venezuela.
Venezuela is the one everyone is watching. If there is bloodshed, by government or opposition, a war crimes indictment could head their way.
Likewise, while staging a coup is not in itself a war crime, Venezuela's generals could find themselves indicted if such a coup leads to torture, repression, wrongful arrest or deportation.
More intriguing still is whether the US would also find itself indicted. Washington is already funding opposition groups. If those groups turn violent, and commit war crimes violations, a paper trail could lead back to the US.
The US insists it must be exempt from the ICC, but the court's rules state that anyone committing a war crime on the territory of a member can be indicted, even if their nation does not recognise the court.
Likewise, both government and guerrillas, and anyone who helps them, could come under the hammer in Columbia if fighting flares again there.
More than half a dozen armies are already involved in the Congo, and investigators could also target the security forces employed by multi-national companies, bringing war crimes law into Europe's boardrooms.
All of this is possible because the court, despite its modest name, has sweeping powers. Like the better known International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia, the ICC can charge people both for crimes committed in battle, and also crimes against civilians, even by a government against its own people. And furthermore, it can try anyone found to helping with such crimes.
Among member states who will have to be on their guard is Britain, should violence flare in Northern Ireland. If there is violence, and the suspicion of a cover-up, the ICC can rule that British justice was inadequate, and launch its own investigation.
Britain and France will also have to consider the war crimes ramifications if they help US forces in Iraq.
In fact, as someone once said about Watergate, with the ICC "the trails lead everywhere". All of this could be some way off. The ICC has a third of the budget of the much larger International Criminal Tribunal for former Yugoslavia. And it has yet to attract a single nomination for the post of prosecutor.
In February its opening meeting, in New York, will elect plenty of judges, but the court will be delayed for months because nobody wants to do the key job.
Meanwhile, sparks will be flying on the other side of The Hague, at the existing UN tribunal.
The court is locked in battle with both Croatia and Yugoslavia, each of whom is refusing to hand over a key general indicted for war crimes.
Croatia refuses to surrender its 83-year-old former army commander, Janko Bobetko, accused of atrocities against Serbs. In a mirror-image, Yugoslavia is hanging onto the former Bosnian Serb army commander, Ratko Mladic, indicted for the massacre of 7,000 Muslims at Srebrenica, the worst single atrocity of the Bosnian war. Both Croatia and Yugoslavia, newly democratic and resting on fragile foundations, argue that to arrest such men will upset the powerful nationalist forces that still lurk there. The Hague is having none of it, and has demanded the UN Security Council issue economic sanctions.
If the Security Council follows through - a decision is expected in late January - Belgrade and Zagreb will be faced with an awkward choice between political instability if they hand the men over, and economic instability if they refuse.
And then, of course, there is Milosevic. His trial will drag on into 2004, through his periodic illnesses and courtroom theatrics.
Milosevic will continue to pose the court's biggest dilemma: On the one hand, the evidence against him is overwhelming, and he is doing a bad job in defending himself.
But his diatribes, while irrelevant to the evidence presented, continue to grab the headlines, winning him sympathy among the Serbs and, more to the point, convincing many in the outside world that he is making a mockery of the court.
It is not all gloom and doom, however. In May the UN court marks its tenth anniversary - a reminder of just how far the war crimes process has come since those first tentative steps.
The recent sentencing hearing of former Bosnian Serb president Biljana Plavsic was a reminder of how successful the court has been in netting the "Big Fish."
All four of the former Bosnian Serb leaders are in the court's sights. Apart from Plavsic, the former "kingmaker," Momcilo Krajisnik, is in jail awaiting trial. The former leader, Radovan Karadzic, is on the run, while Mladic is stuck in Belgrade.
And while his trial sometimes seems more like a pantomime than court proceedings, Milosevic, the biggest fish of them all, is at least in the net.
Struggles remain for both Hague courts this year, but expect to hear, next May, the sound of popping champagne corks.