Introduction.

• Author: Akerson, David

This edition of the Denver Journal of International Law and Policy focuses on the area of international criminal law concerned with the prosecution of mass atrocities. This subset of law is sometimes referred to as the "core crimes" in international criminal law, but the field is so new that the accepted terminology remains fluid. What is not in dispute is that the field is concerned with the perpetration of four categories of crimes: genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity and the crime of aggression. (1) The modern era of the core crimes is in its infancy; it is just over twenty years old. The law and practice in the field is as varied as the countries that have assumed leadership roles at the various tribunals and courts. With two decades of rulings, decisions and judgments, the process of reflection on this rich and diverse body of precedent occurs in journals around the world. This edition hopes to add to this growing scholarship.

The process of understanding the core crimes law and practice begins in the aftermath of WWI, where the terms of surrender imposed on the Germans by the Treaty of Versailles included a provision for the prosecution of the German leader Kaiser Wilhelm. (2) The victorious powers quickly lost their appetite to prosecute the Kaiser and the Kaiser himself was not particularly keen on the idea. (3) Twenty-four years later, the major allied forces of WWII revisited the notion of juridical accountability. In 1943, Winston Churchill, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin met at Tehran and fundamentally agreed on the terms for prosecuting the Third Reich once the hostilities had been concluded. (4) Two and half years later this resulted in the International Military Tribunal ("IMT"), (5) or Nuremberg trial as it is commonly known. The IMT prosecuted nineteen top surviving Nazi leaders which the world hailed as a new alternative to retributive force. (6) While the IMT was successful politically, it was heavily criticized in legal communities. To many legal practitioners and academicians, the IMT was the archetypal example of victor's justice and a poor model for the establishment of an enduring rule of law. (7) But it created momentum for the continued development of the law as a response to force. The IMT was a baby step. The post-war optimism spawned the great thinkers of the time to visualize what future tribunals might accomplish.

This optimism was short-lived as the Cold War abruptly stopped the momentum for the next iteration of tribunals. The freeze-out would last until the demise of the Soviet Union. In 1989, a new political order was at hand and the prospect of law as a response to force was renewed. Only four years later the aspirations of international criminal law were fully realized with the United Nations creating an international tribunal to prosecute persons most responsible for the planning and...