Introduction

Slobodan Milošević's fall from power on October 5, 2000, raised hopes in Serbia and at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) that a new era had dawned. For many Serbs, Milošević's loss in the national elections in late September and his decision – in the face of massive street protests and the loss of support from his elite police units – to finally abide by the election results meant a quick end to Serbia's international isolation and pariah status. With the embrace of electoral democracy, Serbia could now claim a rightful place in the international community. At the ICTY, Milošević's fall increased the prospects of state cooperation for the arrest and hand over of those Serb war crimes suspects who had long evaded the tribunal's reach.

As long as Milošević remained in power as president of the rump Yugoslavia, the tribunal expected and received little, if any, cooperation. The prospects for cooperation only grew worse following the tribunal's May 1999 indictment of Milošević and four senior Serb officials in connection with massacres in Kosovo. Without his removal from power, the tribunal's bid to prosecute Milošević and many other indicted war criminals would continue to be imperiled because many of these suspects were either Serb or Bosnian Serb citizens who enjoyed the protection of the Belgrade government.

The beginning of the democratic era in Fall 2000 marked a new chapter in the “trials of cooperation” between the Serbian government and the ICTY.