The education of all lawyers everywhere in the British American colonies before 1784 was by apprenticeship. Aspirants to the profession, usually without any prior college education at all, read law in the office of an established practitioner. The most important part of this training occurred during the sessions of the local, county, and colony courts when the neophyte would observe, listen carefully, and take notes. After a time, sometimes only months, sometimes two to three years, the student would be examined cursorily and, with senior members of the bar attesting to his good character, admitted to practice. A few whose parents could afford it would travel to London and read law there at the Inns of Court.

All self-respecting legal history is supposed to end by the twentieth century. As we approach our own lives, experience and training — and those events that we have actually witnessed — we allegedly lose that “objectivity” which makes the “science” of history itself possible. Certainly, there is no point in burdening the reader with the “original” materials, including cases and statutes, that make up the bulk of any legal education. But there are good reasons to reflect on our own legal century from an “historical perspective.”

While those of us in the United States have become accustomed to talking about our war on terrorism and its consequences, including its effects on civil rights, we should not ignore the fact that the international community, and specifically the United Nations, is conducting its own ‘war’ on terrorism. I will be addressing the General Assembly's and especially the Security Council's war on terrorism and the challenges these efforts present, including to international human rights.

The fall of the Berlin Wall has substantially changed the global security architecture. The end of the Cold War has opened a lot of new opportunities for international cooperation: Bi-polar world divisions have disappeared, state borders have become softer, and with the assistance of advanced information and communication technology, the process of globalization has been developing rapidly to an unprecedented level.

Working with United Nations documentation can be challenging. For starters, titles of documents are generic. In general, it's a good idea to have a basic sense of how the Organization is structured and its reporting system. (For example, the Commission on Human Rights reports to the Economic and Social Council, the International Law Commission to the General Assembly.) Many tools are available to help in this regard but perhaps the most useful is United Nations Documentation: Research Guide, which is an excellent starting point for neophytes but also has features for advanced researchers which enable them to further hone their skills.

Dr. Kauffman, friends. I am delighted to be back on my old stamping grounds at Yale Law School, which I attended some half-century ago in an era when World War II had been successfully completed and terrorism had not yet been defined as a global threat. The Nuremberg Tribunal was ongoing during part of my time at law school but I'm ashamed to say few of us paid much attention to it. We did not foresee any need to learn its lessons in our “brave new world.” But as we are so often reminded, those who do not heed the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them, and evil has reappeared in new guises over the past 50 years, requiring new responses on an international level. So fast forwarding to the present, I have recently returned from two years service as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) at the Hague; this was after twenty years as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The Yugoslav Tribunal has been in existence for more than 9 years and I believe its history and accomplishments are a worthy subject for scrutiny, especially in light of the new International Criminal Court just getting off the ground. I am therefore pleased to share some observations on the Tribunal's successes and problems, and to offer some modest recommendations to future tribunals.