Is there a “system” of international justice?  Or does the increasing variety of methods for its enforcement indicate that there are merely discrete instances of international justice?  Richard J. Goldstone and Adam M. Smith examine this question through a thorough analysis of international humanitarian law and the institutions that have been used to enforce it in International Judicial Institutions.  Mr. Goldstone is a visiting professor at Harvard Law School who is a former justice of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.  He is also the former Chief Prosecutor of the United Nations International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.  Mr. Smith is an international lawyer based in Washington, DC.  He has written extensively on international law and is the author of After Genocide: Bringing the Devil to Justice.  Mr. Smith has held posts at both the UN and the World Bank.  He was educated at Harvard, Oxford, and Brown.

International Judicial Institutions is part of a series of books on global institutions.  In the forward, the editor of the series explains the need for this book.  He notes that the proliferation of Internet sources, particularly loosely refereed websites, has replaced truly independent, critical, expert analyses of global governance.  In contrast, the Global Institutions series offers accessible, in-depth treatment of prominent international bodies, processes, and associated issues.  The series includes volumes on the UN Security Council, the IMF, NATO, the African Union, the WTO, the WHO, and many other international organizations.  The series is geared toward students, academics, negotiators, diplomats, and both governmental and nongovernmental international law practitioners.

The beginning of the book contains two excellent features.  The first is an extensive list of abbreviations, which is an enormously helpful reference for the dozens of acronyms used in the book.  Most of the abbreviations refer to international tribunals and other international organizations.  The second useful feature is a detailed layout of the book in the introduction.  This layout explains the organization of the book and orients the reader so that the reader knows how each chapter fits into the authors’ argument. 

The authors’ purpose in the book is two-fold.  First, they seek to describe the nature of international humanitarian law.  And second, they seek to discuss the institutional choices employed to enforce that body of law.  The authors organize the book chronologically.  They believe that tracing the development of international tribunals facilitates the reader’s understanding of modern international courts and other institutions.

In Chapter 1, the authors detail the historical development of international humanitarian law in order to demonstrate that such a body of law does in fact exist and that it has regularly been enforced.  In the second chapter, they discuss the first two stages of the development of institutions intended to enforce international humanitarian law.  These stages include the centuries leading up to World War I, and the proliferation of international agreements regulating the laws of war that took place in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.  The authors’ third era of international humanitarian law enforcement coincides with Chapter 3.  This era covers the period from the end of World War II through the outbreak of the Cold War, which includes the famous post-conflict war crimes tribunals in Germany and Japan.  In Chapter 4, the authors argue that the Cold War era saw the rise of domestic prosecutions for international crimes.  Chapter 5 analyzes the post-Cold War era, in which international organizations were able to retake the mantle of international humanitarian law enforcement.  This period is characterized by the creation of ad hoc tribunals, most notably the ICTY and the ICTR.  Finally, Chapter 6 covers the contemporary era.  This era is marked by continued domestic prosecutions and by the establishment of hybrid courts in reaction to the perceived excesses of the ICTY and the ICTR.  It is also marked by the establishment of the ICC.  The authors argue that the ICC will promote continued diversity of methods of international law prosecution because it is a complementary court.

The authors conclude that currently there is no unified system of international justice.  They contend that the system of international justice is in a state of flux.  There exists a wide variety of methods of addressing international humanitarian law violations, from the ICC to hybrid courts to non-judicial truth and reconciliation commissions, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.  To the authors, this diversity of institutions represents a menu from which those entrusted with enforcing international law can choose in order to best promote justice in a given situation.  The authors note the criticism of the international judicial enterprise and the lack of unified methods for dealing with violations of humanitarian law.  And they acknowledge that international institutions have failed to completely prevent humanitarian catastrophes, such as the situation in Darfur.  But they find reason to be optimistic in the worldwide enthusiasm for international justice and the variety of methods available for achieving it.

This is a remarkably readable book.  The authors do an outstanding job clarifying the often obscure body of law known as international humanitarian law and the confusing diversity of international institutions enforcing that body of law.  The tracing of the development of these institutions imparts a nuanced understanding of the modern institutions.  The one place where the book is lacking is in its treatment of the theoretical debate about the legitimacy of international humanitarian law, whether it actually constitutes binding law.  The authors do not shrink from objections to the legitimacy of this body of law.  Indeed, they describe these objections thoroughly in Chapter 1.  But their refutations of these objections are a little thin.  In the authors’ defense, this theoretical debate may go beyond the scope of their book.  Nevertheless, it would have been nice to have the debate more thoroughly fleshed out. 

Overall, this book is an excellent resource for those who seek to learn about the substance and contours of international humanitarian law and the development of institutions to enforce it.  The authors entirely succeed in their chief goal of using an examination of this development to impart a sophisticated understanding of contemporary international justice institutions.  It is an effortless, fascinating, and informative read.