Under the Blue Flag

Seeking to escape the monotony of his job as assistant District Attorney in San Francisco, Philip Kearney needed a change. His solution came one day in a casual email from a friend: ' U.N. has opening here for an international prosecutor doing war crimes stuff. You should apply.' ' Here' meant Pristina, Kosovo, and 'stuff' Kearney soon found out- after landing the job despite his inexperience with international law and an inability to speak any foreign languages- meant a harrowing string of investigations involving the most brutal and devastating crimes imaginable. Abruptly removed from the comforts of home and the order and stability of America's justice system, Kearney found himself the sole international prosecutor assigned to a region of nearly one million people. Under the Blue Flag reads like an international legal thriller as Kearney and his colleagues are shuttled in armored vehicles between crime scenes and the makeshift courtrooms where Kosovo's fledgling legal system is tested daily. In the face of almost insurmountable obstacles- witness intimidation, corrupt law enforcement, and deep ethnic biases- the truth is slowly revealed. And with the truth emerges a cast of conflict-weary locals and displaced internationals, many of whom come to represent the war's most courageous and unheralded heroes. Under the Blue Flag is a passionate and eye-opening look at a post-war Kosovo that continues to straddle the stubborn gap between a past corrupted by violence and injustice and a future governed by the rule of law.