BELGRADE, Serbia — The arrest of Ratko Mladic offers Europe some closure on a horrific period of its recent history, and is a substantial boost for Serbia and its president, Boris Tadic. But obstacles remain ahead for Serbia on its long journey back to the European family. After 16 years of evading near misses and false leads, Mladic came quietly. The former head of the Bosnian Serb Army (VRS) was found not in a mountain redoubt in Bosnia, but in an innocuous town on the northern Serbian plains. Mladic has been indicted on 15 counts, including genocide and crimes against […]

Just more than a week ago at the United Nations saw the close of the Meeting of Governmental Experts on the Implementation of the Program of Action to Prevent, Combat and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects — an elaborate name for an initiative whose progress has been marred by bureaucratic chaos, slow implementation and unequal state capacities. The Program of Action, created in 2001, is a series of recommendations on small arms and light weapons, ranging from destruction of surplus arms to changing national laws to regulate the arms trade. The […]

Mexico’s Growing Frustration With U.S.-Backed Drug War

Major protests in Mexico this month highlighted mounting frustration among many Mexicans toward violence that has claimed some 36,000 lives in the country since President Felipe Calderón declared war on drug cartels five years ago. Some are now questioning the implications such public dissatisfaction may carry for the United States, which for the past several years has pursued a policy of supporting Calderón’s fight against the cartels. “The big question is what will happen in Mexico’s 2012 presidential election,” says Hal Brands, a historian at Duke University’s Sanford School of Public Policy and a World Politics Review contributor. With Calderón’s […]

Dominique Strauss-Kahn and the Presumption of Innocence

My first thought upon hearing the news of Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s arrest was that, if there is even a kernel of truth to the allegations, it is highly unlikely that this is the first time he has been guilty of this kind of behavior. And indeed, the stories have begun, not to surface, but to resurface, with one former Sarkozy adviser quoted a few years ago as saying, “Everyone in Paris has known for years he had something of a problem. Not many female journalists are prepared to interview him alone these days.” If this is actually the case, then it […]