Global Justice: Politics Of War Crime Trials, The

Description:
After a controversial war in which he was ousted and captured by United States forces, Saddam Hussein was arraigned before a war crimes tribunal. Slobodan Milosevic died midway through his contentious trial by an international war crimes tribunal at The Hague. Calls for intervention and war crimes trials for the massacres and rapes in Sudan's Darfur region have been loud and clear. The United States remains fiercely opposed to the permanent International Criminal Court. Are war crimes trials impartial, apolitical forums? Has international justice for war crimes become an entrenched aspect of globalisation? In 'Global Justice', the author examines the phenomenon of war crimes trials. He argues that, contrary to conventional wisdom, they are neither motivated nor influenced solely by abstract notions of justice. Instead, war crimes trials are the product of the interplay of political forces that have led to an inevitable clash between globalisation and sovereignty on the sensitive question of who should judge war criminals. From Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm to the Japanese Emperor Hirohito, from the trials of Milosevic, Saddam Hussein, and Liberia's Charles Taylor to Belgium's attempts to enforce the contested doctrine of 'universal jurisdiction,' the author renders a compelling tour de force of one of the most controversial subjects in world politics. He argues that, necessary though it was, international justice has run into a crisis of legitimacy. While international trials will remain a policy option, local or regional responses to mass atrocities will prove more durable.

Author Biography:
KINGSLEY CHIEDU MOGHALU is an international lawyer, columnist, and a senior official in the United Nations system. He was formerly Legal Adviser to the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and is the author of Rwanda's Genocide: The Politics of Global Justice (2005).