ABSTRACT
As party to the Geneva Conventions and their two Additional Protocols, states must ensure that any individual who commits war crimes is held accountable therefore. The enactment of criminal laws at the national level to be able to prosecute violations of international humanitarian law is required to fully implement this obligation. Various approaches have been taken by states to enable prosecutions domestically, either by incorporating into their existing court system, civilian or military, war crimes as prosecutable offences or by creating specialized chambers with jurisdiction over such crimes. This chapter discusses that, in instances where states have been unable to fulfil this obligation, the international community has responded by creating international or hybrid judicial bodies to try those individuals bearing senior responsibility for the most serious war crimes. This chapter considers the legacies of the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals and reviews the international courts established to try international crimes in Sierra Leone, Cambodia, the former Yugoslavia, and Rwanda. The chapter also discusses the International Criminal Court (ICC), a permanent treaty-based court with a potentially broad jurisdictional reach. Finally, this chapter considers other mechanisms that can further compliance with international humanitarian law.
