International Criminal Tribunals: Justice and Politics

The book summarizes the work of international criminal courts focusing on the political challenges faced by them. It is a practical, comprehensive manual on the origin and development of international criminal justice and includes the criminal tribunals of Nuremberg, Tokyo, Yugoslavia, Rwanda, East Timor, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, Lebanon, Iraq. This book reviews the statutes, achievements and limitations of international criminal courts, starting with the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals, and followed in the 1990s by temporary international or hybrid national/international courts as well as the creation of the permanent International Criminal Court. These courts have all been exposed to pressures and interference by national and international politics, which have affected their performance. Are they really independent from states which have created them and on which do they depend for their financing and cooperation? The ultimate question is whether international criminal justice is a utopian enterprise based on unrealistic and biased grounds, or whether, in spite of its flaws and limitations it constitutes an important step forward in the long fight against the impunity of criminal leaders. With an innovative interdisciplinary approach linking the legal, the historical and the political, the author provides both an overview and a political analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the various tribunals and of international criminal justice in general