Resolving the Yugoslav conflict was the last great foreign policy challenge of the 20th century. In this work, two former State Department lawyers, Paul Williams and Michael Scharf, undertake to tell the ""warts and all"" story of the role of justice in building peace in the former Yugoslavia. During the conflict, Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic was transformed from a key partner in peace to an indicted war criminal. But the road from accommodation to accountability in the Balkans was anything but smooth. Based on their personal experience, research and interviews with key players in the Yugoslav peace-building process, Williams and Scharf provide an account of how and why justice was misapplied and mishandled throughout the peace-builders' efforts to settle the Yugoslav conflict. All too often human rights and peace advocates treat justice as a panacea for conflict and atrocities, while self-proclaimed realists and professional diplomats dismiss justice as an impediment to peace.;Williams and Scharf demonstrate that the truth lies in between. This study offers a framework for understanding the utility of justice as well as its practical limits as a diplomatic tool so that it can be more effectively applied in resolving future conflicts around the globe.