the polite fiction that nations answer to something bigger than their own armies.
means the system of courts, tribunals, and treaties that try to hold states and individuals accountable for crimes no domestic court will touch.
from emerged from the ashes of world war two, when the nuremberg and tokyo trials proved victors could put the defeated on trial and call it law rather than revenge; the idea calcified into permanent institutions after the cold war ended and genocide in the balkans and rwanda made ad hoc tribunals feel too slow.
nuremberg trials — 1945-46, nazi leadership tried in germany, 12 death sentences
icc the hague — founded 2002, has convicted only a handful in 20 years
rwanda tribunal — ictr convicted 61 people for the 1994 genocide
pinochet arrest — chilean dictator detained in london, 1998, universal jurisdiction test