The book explains the most significant cases and jurisprudence emerging from the 32-year record of the judicial institutions highlighted in the book. It engages the readers with the human stories behind the legal rulings so that the context and drama are properly introduced and understood. We will describe the principles of international law emerging from and being strengthened by the jurisprudence of tribunal judges. These include: the legal authority of the UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, and regional organizations like the European Union and the Council of Europe to create  ad hoc or hybrid war crimes tribunals; greater precision and context in defining each category and listing of atrocity crimes, including the full range of genocide and torture and when either crime encompasses rape, the range of situations that constitute genocide and crimes against humanity, forced marriage as a crime against humanity, torture as a jus cogens principle, hate speech as persecution, and enslavement; elaborating modalities of individual criminal responsibility about command responsibility, aiding and abetting, and co-perpetration or joint criminal enterprise; developing new principles regulating non-international armed conflicts and the status of non-state groups under international law; establishing clearer intent ( mens rea ) requirements for crimes against humanity and genocide; applying judicial notice to confirm the obvious reality that atrocity crimes on a massive scale occurred in a particular situation; establishing a broad range of human rights protections and the responsibility of states to ensure their enforcement.

This book tells the story of pathbreaking developments in select cases litigated before the International Court of Justice, five special purpose atrocity crimes tribunals, the International Criminal Court, and the European, Inter-American and African human rights courts, as well as what to anticipate with the newly-created Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine. The protection of human rights as an obligation of national governments is reflected in major cases of the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the African Court of Human and Peoples' Rights.