The road to developing an international institutional capacity to prosecute crimes against humanity, war crimes, and genocide has been a long one, and has in many ways concluded with the establishment of the International Criminal Court (ICC). By looking at the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), as well as the ICC, this paper traces the evolution of the concept of individual criminal responsibility to its present incarnation. It argues that while the ICC presents its own unique ‘added value’ to the prosecution of international criminals, its application of justice continues to be biased by the influence of powerful states.
