YUGOSLAV WAR CRIMES TRIBUNAL BEGINS

The first-ever U.N. war crimes tribunal convened today with its first defendant: Dusan Tadic, the only suspect in custody of 22Bosnian Serbs charged with crimes against humanity. Sitting behind bulletproof glass in a courtroom in The Hague, Tadic pleaded innocent to charges that included murder and rape -- the first time rape has ever been tried as a war crime. The chief suspect not in custody: Radovan Karadzic, theBosnian Serb leaderwho is being investigated for genocide. The tribunal is the first international prosecution of violations of the Geneva Convention since the Tokyo and Nuremberg tribunals set up by the victorious World War II allies in the 1940s.TIME correspondent Bonnie Angelonotes that the U.N. has faced charges of foot-dragging because it took two years to convene the temporary court -- in part because of concerns in Russia, Mexico and other nations with mixed human rights records that it could become permanent.