International Criminal Court (ICC)

The relationship between international courts and States shapes how they provide accountability, build peace, and respond to backlash.

International courts rarely end wars, but when designed humbly, creatively, and fairly, they can help parties choose law over war—turning justice into a path toward peace.

A new treaty on crimes against humanity will require extensive dialogue and ongoing efforts to engage delegations about the substantive issues.

This article examines how the ICJ and ICC navigate legitimacy challenges in armed conflicts, testing their authority, fairness, and impact on global peace and justice.

Judicial involvement in ongoing armed conflicts should be examined from multiple vantage points: courts, victims, parties to conflict, and broader goals of peace and security.

An international convention on prevention and punishment of crimes against humanity would be a visible step toward accountability.

An expert overview of the draft articles produced by the ILC for the upcoming U.N. conference on a Crimes Against Humanity Treaty.

A symposium featured expert analyses of issues related to advancing the draft International Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity.

The ICJ should explicitly interpret ‘intentionally’ killing members of a group to include dolus directus and dolus eventualis in the case brought by Gambia against Myanmar.

The ICC Appeals Chamber affirmed the case against Israeli leaders, narrowing Article 18 complementarity and raising concerns about the Court’s treatment of non-member states.

What stories or topics merited more attention in 2025, and which might inform law and policy conversations in 2026?

Compromising on prosecutions for Russian atrocities would erode the system of international justice built since Nuremberg and undermine the rule of law itself.