Revenge of the Legal Nerds

Slobo's in the slammer. not a decade too soon. Many people deserve credit for this spectacular turn of events — politicians, soldiers, human-rights activists, journalists, diplomats, ordinary voters — in many countries. I would like to give tribute to one person in particular: Raphael Lemkin. A Polish refugee from Hitler, a scholar of international law who spoke 14 languages, he died, penniless and lonely, in 1959. But he invented the word genocide and devoted his life to persuading governments to outlaw it.

The hundreds of thousands dead and millions homeless in Milosevic's wake are testament to the power of...