Though the move by the ICC chief prosecutor is a significant one, it’s very unlikely the Israeli or Palestinian leaders will be arrested or face a trial.
Franz Roselbach, a Roma survivor of the Holocaust who was sent to Auschwitz when he was 15, attends a ceremony at the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp in 2006.
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The push for national trials reflects a disappointment with the slow pace and high costs of international justice.
Karim Khan, chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Court, speaks at a Parliament Hill news conference during his first official visit to Canada in May 2023.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Spencer Colby
The war crimes probe signals a new path for Canada that prioritizes international law and corrects past policy failures, while validating the experiences of Ukrainians.
A military convoy on the way to Port Sudan on Aug. 30, 2023.
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The international community has also failed to protect civilians in Syria, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yemen, Myanmar and Ethiopia, a genocide expert writes.
The Washington, D.C., courthouse where Donald Trump’s Jan. 6-related trial will likely take place.
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Donald Trump’s trial for his efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election will promote accountability – but could this show trial have a dangerous outcome, too?
Theodor Heuss, leader of the Free Democratic Party faction for Baden-Wuerttemberg addresses the parliamentary council in Bonn in 1949.
Associated Press/Alamy
The failure to hold the perpetrators of the Darfur genocide accountable has led to further instability in Sudan.
Croat leaders Jadranko Prlic, Bruno Stojic, Slobodan Praljak, Milivoj Petkovic, Valentin Coric and Berislav Pusic stand trial at the Hague in 2013.
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The International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda (ICTR) and for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) have tried dozens of individuals. An investigation looks at how the accused experienced these trials.
Many genocide classes review the Holocaust or Cambodia’s Killing Fields. A scholar wanted to show that genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing still happen today.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Union High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell (R) light candles in the Church of St. Andrew and Pyervozvannoho All Saints during their visit to the site of a mass grave in Bucha, April 2022.
Sergei Supinsky/AFP
The war’s one-year anniversary is eerily close to that of an EU report on the prevention of mass atrocities. Ten years later, its authors reflect on what the bloc could have done differently.
Nhet Sok Heng/Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia via AP
Many Khmer Rouge leaders died before they could be indicted, and attempts to prosecute other suspects were blocked by the Cambodian government. Now, attention is turning to the tribunal’s legacy.
The trial of Russian soldier Vadim Shishimarin could be mirrored with similar war crimes prosecutions by Moscow.
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Holding war crimes trials during active hostilities is rare. Proceedings in Ukraine also open the risk of Russian show trials, argues a law of war expert.
Evidence: war crimes investigators examine a mass grave in Bucha, Kyiv, April 2022.
EPA-EFE/Oleg Petrasyuk
When it comes to war crimes in Ukraine, the Kremlin is intimately following the Syrian playbook. To prevent further atrocities, leaders must now draw the lessons from the conflict in Western Asia.
A Ukrainian soldier observes a destroyed shopping mall in Kyiv on March 29, 2022.
Mykhaylo Palinchak/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
There are a few warning signs that genocide is happening. In the Russian war on Ukraine, all of those are present.
Vladimir Putin celebrated Russia’s annexation of Crimea on March 18, 2022, the eighth anniversary of the move.
Mikhail Klimentyev/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images
None of the available methods for holding Russian President Vladimir Putin accountable are likely to actually punish him, and they may even make new atrocities more likely.
Co-Director, Institute for Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention, and Professor of Public Administration, Binghamton University, State University of New York