ABSTRACT
The pursuit of international justice has reinvigorated international humanitarian law. This chapter examines the major issues relating to the present day pursuit of international justice. It traces the history of modern international humanitarian law beginning with the 1945 Nuremberg Trial of the major Nazi war criminals. The chapter considers the courts that were established in the last decade of the twentieth century—namely, the two United Nations ad hoc tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, the various hybrid or mixed tribunals, and the International Criminal Court (ICC). It describes the major current debates around these tribunals and deals with a brief consideration of likely future developments. The tribunals of the 1990s owed their very existence to political decisions reached by the United Nations. The chapter discusses the successes and failures of these ICCs and tribunals, the major issues that are currently being debated, and the prospects of the ICC.
