“The Bush administration yesterday called on the U.N. war-crimes tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia to stop wasting time and money and wrap up their work in six years,” The Washingon Times Reports.

“‘If left to their own devices, these two tribunals would drag on forever. Over the next few years, they will spend half a billion dollars,’ said one State Department official, on the condition of anonymity.”

“In public remarks on Capitol Hill, Pierre-Richard Prosper, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for war crimes, was more diplomatic”:

‘The process at times has been costly, has lacked efficiency, has been too slow and has been too removed from the everyday experience of the people and the victims,’ Mr. Prosper said.

‘There have been problems that challenge the integrity of the process,’ said Mr. Prosper, referring to reports of mismanagement and abuse, particularly at the Rwanda war-crimes tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania.

The administration’s criticism of the tribunals — set up by the United Nations to prosecute war crimes in Rwanda in 1994 and the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s — reflects a deep mistrust of multilateral justice systems.

The United States is opposed to a permanent U.N. international court, to be modeled on the Rwanda and Yugoslavia tribunals. The Bush administration, like the Clinton administration, fears that a permanent tribunal would place U.S. peacekeeping troops at the mercy of frivolous and politically motivated charges.

A word on the UN: Durban.

“…that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

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