International Criminal Court and Ad Hoc Tribunals

Abstract

This chapter traces the growth of international criminal courts since World War II. The trials of Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg in 1944 led, after a lapse of almost half a century, to decisions by the UN Security Council to establish two ad hoc international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia (1993) and for Rwanda (1994). UN-mandated courts followed in East Timor, Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina; and by state-requested courts, so-called ‘mixed’ or ‘hybrid’ criminal tribunals, in partnership with the UN, in Sierra Leone, Cambodia, and Lebanon. In terms of the Rome Statute of 1998, the International Criminal Court became effective in July 2002 and will likely become the only international criminal court.