Putting War On Trial

She fought Cosa Nostra in Italy (and barely escaped being blown to bits in 1988 for her efforts). She took on the Russian Mafia and the legendary banking secrecy laws of her native Switzerland, where she rose to the top law-enforcement job in the land. But all that was just the prelude. In five years as the chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in the Hague — the most important war-crimes court since Nuremberg — Carla del Ponte has pursued and brought to justice some of the world's most dangerous men.

Now, as...