ABSTRACT
On 28 June 2001 the government of Serbia extradited former Yugoslav and Serbian President Slobodan Milošević to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) after months of intense diplomatic, legal and domestic controversy. The extradition caught many by surprise; the days and months leading to the extradition revealed conflicting indicators as to what would ultimately happen. In Serbia, public support for the extradition was divided; 2 which was less an indication of sympathy for the former ruler as it was a representation of popular opinion 3 that the ICTY was partial in its justice. 4 General opinion, amongst the Serbian public and elites alike, was that all ICTY inductees, including Milošević, should be tried at home 5 not only for alleged war crimes committed against other Yugoslav nationalities but also for crimes committed against the Serbian state and citizenry. 6 Hence, for both strategic and normative reasons, important currents within Serbian society and the political elite viewed the extradition of the former President as contrary to ‘national interests’. Nevertheless, the United States set a clear deadline of 29 June 2001 as the date by which Milošević had to be in The Hague. 7 The deadline was not random: an international donors’ conference for Yugoslavia (Donors’ Conference) was set for that same day, with approximately US$1 billion at stake. 8 In the end, Milošević checked into the ICTY prison at 1:16 am on 29 June 2001. 9 Did Milošević’s drastic extradition confirm the panacea-like power of international incentives? Time would shortly tell.
