Foreword: war tales and war trials

In this article, the author compares her experiences as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, and the work of war crimes tribunals generally, with a few of the recurrent themes in epic tales of war. Many novelists seek to evoke revulsion to war by reducing its immensity and harm to the plight of individuals caught up in its throes. Similarly, the tribunals try to explicate for the public the terrible consequences of war to victims from the actions or inactions of political and military leaders who instigate and orchestrate war. Predictably they have not yet been able to approach full satisfaction for war's impotent victims or to inspire sufficiently widespread efforts to curb the terrifying revelations of the courtroom. But like the novelists, they try their best to reveal the dark underside of wars spawned by nationalistic, tyrannical leaders and to bring at least some of those leaders to account.