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Last word?

In all, the tribunal indicted 161 people. So far, 69 have been convicted, 18 acquitted and 13 sent home for trial. Proceedings are unfinished in 25 cases. Three of them are particularly prominent ones: those of Radovan Karadzic, the wartime leader of the Bosnian Serbs, Ratko Mladic, his military chief and Goran Hadzic, a former Croatian Serb leader.

One thing the tribunal has done will be of lasting value. It has created the most complete archive of witness testimonies of any war that has ever been fought. Its archive contains 1.6m pages of transcripts. That of the prosecutors has 9m pages of documents, orders and intercepts. The testimonies of some 4,500 witnesses have been preserved for history. So the tribunal’s verdicts will not be the last word.

- Balkan war-crimes: Winding down with a whimper, The Economist, June 8, 2013.

3. The world certainly has changed since 1996. When a Republican Congress passed and a Democratic president signed the Defense of Marriage Act, few people thought it ever would be challenged. After all, no states at the time allowed same-sex marriage.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court knocked down the law as unconstitutional. The ruling was one of the last hurdles at the national level against same-sex marriage. Public attitudes have been changing rapidly. Delaware is one of 13 states that recognize same-sex marriage.

The Supreme Court now gives same-sex married couples in those states the same federal benefits and legal protections heterosexual couples receive. The decision would seem to reflect changing popular ideas about gay rights. Most polls show that opposition to or support of same-sex marriage is divided predominately along generational lines. In that case, it would seem to be a matter of time before the issue is settled by law in all 50 states.