The simple appearance of an indicted suspect before the international court here was sufficient cause for cheer in a tortuous search for justice that has yielded few results. The lack of arrests is but one of the problems undermining the court, which is attempting to punish those responsible for the worst atrocities in Europe since World War II and serve as model for a permanent war-crimes court. In the tribunal's first trial, a key witness was caught lying. A lead prosecutor has quit in frustration.
Governments thumb their noses at subpoenas.
Suspects continue to work in positions of power, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, with forces in Bosnia, refuses to round them up. Louise Arbour, a Canadian jurist who became the court's chief prosecutor six months ago, acknowledged the difficulties and the frustrating lack of cooperation from all sides. But she argued that the work of the United Nations' International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, as it is formally known, is at a turning point. They are not cooperating to any level of satisfaction. And the international community, in its many manifestations, is way too tolerant of this kind of defiance.