Punishing Atrocities Through a Fair Trial : International Criminal Law from Nuremberg to the Age of Global Terrorism

Over the past decades, international criminal law has evolved to become the operative norm for addressing the worst atrocities.

Tribunals have conducted numerous trials addressing mass violence in the former Yugoslavia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Cambodia, and other countries in order to bring to justice perpetrators of war crimes and other grave offenses. Yet international courts have struggled to hold perpetrators accountable for these crimes while still protecting the fair trial rights of defendants.

Punishing Atrocities through a Fair Trial explores this tension as it has developed from criticism of the Nuremberg Trials as 'victor's justice' to the accusations of political motivations clouding prosecutions today by the International Criminal Court . It explains why international criminal law must adhere to transparent principles of legality and due process if it is to assure its future as a legitimate legal regime.