Trials for International Crimes in Asia

Kirsten Sellars teaches in the Faculty of Law at the Chinese University in Hong Kong and has put together a remarkable series of essays by authors of great expertise to chart the development from 1945 to date of international criminal trials in Asia. This part of the planet has been the least committed to the International Criminal Court, but there is a rich seam of international justice (both good and bad) mined in the region and it is important to have had it reviewed to provide us with a better understanding of eastern perspectives. The focus since the UN ad hoc tribunals were established in the 1990s has largely been upon western ideas and concepts in the composition of the modern day international courts, but these connected essays give us a different insight as to what the east considers important. In making such an assessment this book reminds us when we consider the failings of the past that not all, if any, contemporary courts make for happy reading, as the section on the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal “The tribunals in Bangladesh – Falling short of international standards” by Abdur Razzaq sadly proves. In that tribunal, which is operating in modern times under a cloak of universal jurisdiction....