Background on the News - 2003-12-17

Confronting a Dictator's Legacy

December 17, 2003

Now that Saddam Hussein has been captured, the question is what to do with him. There is general agreement that he should be brought to justice for his crimes, but disagreement over where, how, and under what auspices. Just before his apprehension the Iraqi Governing Council voted to create a tribunal to handle war crimes; this might well be a starting point for any trial, but doubts remain about the local capacity to pull off such a critical undertaking. Foreign Affairs has analyzed the problems of transitional justice recently in Gary Bass's report on the trial of Slobodan Milosevic in the Hague and Jonathan Tepperman's assessment of the experience with truth commissions in South Africa and Guatemala.

Full-text articles:

• Milosevic in The Hague
  (May/June 2003)
• Truth and Consequences
  (March/April 2002)

Previously in Background on the News

Liberty Strikes Back
December 4, 2003
This week the Department of Homeland Security dropped a controversial program requiring adult men mostly from Arab countries to register with immigration authorities, even after they had lawfully entered the United States. Civil rights activists had criticized these watchlists—and related cumbersome visa restrictions—for singling out Muslims... Read more

Disarming the Rogue
November 18, 2003
The North Korea nuclear crisis showed signs of easing recently when—following multilateral negotiations involving China, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United States—Pyongyang agreed to consider dismantling its nuclear programs in exchange for security guarantees from Washington... Read more

In the Next Issue of Foreign Affairs

On newsstands starting January 6, 2004

• Colin Powell on the Bush administration's foreign policy
• Michael Scott Doran on the crisis inside the Saudi government
• Jagdish Bhagwati on the collapse of the Cancún trade negotiations
• Graham Allison on countering the threat of nuclear terrorism

Plus: NAFTA enters its second decade, the delicate balance between the United States and Brazil, the politics of AIDS, and an analysis of civil liberties during the war on terrorism.

To get your copy of the January/February 2004 issue, visit your local newsstand or the Barnes & Noble store nearest you beginning January 6, 2004. To receive your copy in the mail, subscribe no later than:

• U.S. Orders: January 31, 2004.
• International and Canadian orders: December 15, 2003.

In the Current Issue of Foreign Affairs

The complete text of selected essays and of all the book reviews from the November/December issue can be found on the Foreign Affairs Web site. Currently the following essays are available in their full text:

That Was Then: Allen Dulles in Occupied Germany

Allen W. Dulles

U.S. troops on conquered territory, infrastructure in ruins, international squabbling over reconstruction — an off-the-record briefing from future CIA Director Allen Dulles on the American occupation of Germany, seven months after VE Day.

China's New Diplomacy

Evan S. Medeiros and M. Taylor Fravel

China's economy is booming and its foreign policy is following suit. A look at Beijing's newly sophisticated — and highly effective — diplomatic activism.

WEB EXCLUSIVE

What Harry Truman Can Teach George Bush

George Bush has called the reconstruction of Iraq "the greatest financial commitment of its kind since the Marshall Plan." Find out what the Truman administration actually did, and what lessons can be drawn from it, with this special package of highlights from the Foreign Affairs archives.