Recognizing the limitations of current international systems based in The Hague, David A. Kaye provides a strategy for promoting national-level justice and accountability mechanisms to prosecute perpetrators of mass atrocity crimes.

The controversial relationship between the United States and the International Criminal Court (ICC) is at a crossroads: After an initial period of hostility toward the ICC, the United States has in recent years pursued a policy of cautious engagement. Vijay Padmanabhan offers a backdrop of the U.S.-ICC relationship and policy recommendations for the U.S. delegation attending the Seven-Year Review Conference in May/June 2010.

News of planned military trials for five 9/11 suspects underscores the Obama administration's need to more forcefully defend the necessity of military tribunals if they are to have legitimacy at home and abroad, says CFR's Matthew Waxman.

Pending indictments in a UN tribunal could link Hezbollah and Syria to the death of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri. Lebanon expert Michael Young says all sides, including Saudi Arabia and the U.S., are scrambling to deal with the impact of the findings.

Stewart M. Patrick, a former member of the State Department's Policy Planning staff, discusses the utility of international courts in combating rampant rights abuses.

The U.S. State Department’s legal adviser says Washington remains concerned about the prosecutorial reach of the ICC but wants to help it pursue some war criminals.

CFR Adjunct Fellow Noah Feldman, discussing the legal issues at stake in the upcoming Hamdan decision, says the case will decide whether military tribunals are constitutionally sufficient and warns that if the Supreme Court rules current trial procedures inadequate, it may be difficult to try many of the nearly 500 Guantanamo detainees.

A paper examining the International Criminal Court (ICC) and assessing how the next president of the United States could more constructively engage with the ICC in accordance with the Rome Statute.

The Suffolk Transnational Law Review examines the Medellin decision and its implications for the United States and the rule of law in international affairs.

This conference report addresses how to devise useful and pragmatic strategies on what steps the United States can do to help implement a judicial doctrine on war crimes called Responsibility to Protect, or R2P.

Trial Watch maintains this updated backgrounder and current developments account of the trial of Liberia's alleged genocidal former president Charles Taylor.

Abraham D. Sofaer, a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, and Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, discuss the merits of capital punishment in trying dictators and other war criminals in this CFR Online Debate.

John B. Bellinger III argues that Congress should reconsider the International Criminal Court.

John B. Bellinger III argues that Libyans should be allowed to choose whether they want to try members of the Qaddafi regime in their own courts.

James M. Lindsay argues that an indictment of Moammar Gadhafi by the International Criminal Court could actually make it harder to bring Libya's civil war to a quick end.

John B. Bellinger III says that President Obama and the 112th Congress should comply with the Vienna Convention, to help ensure that Americans arrested abroad are given access to State Department officials.

John B. Bellinger III discusses the anniversary of the Geneva Conventions and argues that the United States should use its political capital to clarify the Conventions and make them applicable to modern warfare.