The Israel War Crime Complexifier

Photo: Ashraf Amra/Getty Images
Julia Ioffe
November 1, 2023

For eight years, David Scheffer had the incredibly enviable job of working closely with trailblazer and, to women of a certain age in foreign policy (like myself), idol Madeleine Albright. Trained as a lawyer, Scheffer did a brief stint as a foreign policy staffer in Congress before going to work for Albright, first at the U.N. and then at the State Department—and then becoming a pioneer in his own right. As the Clinton administration dealt with the genocides unfolding in Bosnia and Rwanda, Scheffer became the point man in helping the U.S.—and the world—create a global legal framework for how to manage and prosecute war crimes.