ABSTRACT
The Eichmann case is a modern illustration of a political and legal dilemma that has frustrated the mature development of international criminal law as a discrete discipline. The need to establish an independent international criminal tribunal with relatively broad jurisdiction was recognized by the United Nations early on. The goal of setting up such a court has been championed down the years by various intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, diplomats, and international law experts, most notable among the latter being Professor M. Cherif Bassiouni. The Security Council's establishment of the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia was a momentous step forward because it put in place an impartial international mechanism to bring the architects and perpetrators of grave international crimes to justice. The early 1990s also saw the International Law Commission (ILC) make significant progress toward establishing a permanent international criminal court. In May 1992 the ILC appointed a Working Group on the Question of an International Criminal Jurisdiction.
