I'VE CHOSEN TO DISCUSS THE NEGOTIATIONS SURROUNDING the establishment of the Pan Am 103 trial in the Netherlands and the negotiations surrounding the accidental bombing of the Chinese Embassy during the 1999 NATO intervention in Kosovo.

Negotiations for the Pan Am 103 Trial

My first full day in office was September 15, 1997. In my first formal meeting with Secretary Albright, she asked me, “Do you think you can engineer a third-country trial for the two Libyans accused of blowing up Pan Am 103?”

She had just returned from a meeting with some of the families of the victims of Pan Am 103 and was quite moved by what she heard. The idea of a third-country trial had been circulating for quite some time, and Qaddafi, himself had suggested a trial in The Hague. The United States, for a number of reasons, was quite reluctant to take up any of these suggestions. The Attorney General, for example, was skeptical of any attempt to negotiate the venue of the trial of the two terrorists. She thought the approach could be viewed as a violation of U.S. counterterrorism policy.

However by the end of 1997, the sanctions had been in place for more than five years, and the sanctions regime was crumbling. Various countries were violating the embargo on trade, and the prohibition on flights was being violated with alarming frequency. The tenth anniversary of the bombing was coming up.