Today's international war crimes tribunals lack police powers, and therefore must prod and persuade defiant states to co-operate in the arrest and prosecution of their own political and military leaders. Victor Peskin's comparative study traces the development of the capacity to build the political authority necessary to exact compliance from states implicated in war crimes and genocide in the cases of the International War Crimes Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Drawing on 300 in-depth interviews with tribunal officials, Balkan and Rwandan politicians, and Western diplomats, Peskin uncovers the politicized, protracted, and largely behind-the-scenes tribunal-state struggle over co-operation.

Winner of the Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2008

'In fascinating detail, Peskin (Arizona State University) documents and contrasts the complex politics of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ITCY) and the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda (ITCR). … His scholarly analysis reiterates how the quest for international peace must sometimes trump idealistic efforts to achieve justice. … For scholars and practitioners of diplomacy and international law, this publication is indispensable. Summing up: essential.'

Source: Choice

'… most academic commentators are enamoured of the alleged independence of the international tribunals from the realm of the political, extolling their ability to transcend such considerations. By contrast, Peskin starts with the assumption that politics is at the core of the operation of these tribunals. The way forward is to acknowledge this reality, he posits, rather than to deny it … Peskin’s important and valuable insights into the relationship between international tribunals and the governments of countries that are targeted by their prosecutions provide great assistance in understanding future problems. … His findings should be much studied by those who are struggling to make the International Criminal Court work.'

Source: Law and Politics Book Review

'Based on field research and interviews conducted in the targeted states, the tribunals, and in key international sites, Victor Peskin’s new book, International Justice in Rwanda and the Balkans, looks behind the scenes focusing on, a mostly overlooked issue in the tribunal literature, the tribunal-state struggle over cooperation in the pursuit of accountability. … In his analysis of the International Criminal Court, Peskin explains why this court is likely to face even greater difficulties in its quest for state cooperation than either the ICTY or ICTR have experienced.'

Source: South East Europe Review

'In every respect, this is an outstanding analysis, original and much-needed. This book represents a very important step in the general effort to subject a topic that has been dominated by activists and lawyers to serious social scientific and theoretical analysis. This will make it useful both to researchers and to a more general readership of people who have an interest in the regions under consideration and in issues of humanitarian law more broadly.'

Eric Gordy - University College London

'Both the promise and limits of international criminal courts emerge vividly from these pages, for it’s a tale that’s alternately heartening and sobering. This author has done tough legwork in the trenches and interviews on the ground with key players in several countries, and he joins them all to insightful and rewarding reflection on the evolving direction of international tribunals. It’s a rare book that’s so tersely written and tightly edited that, opening it at any page and reading any sentence, one immediately sees the connection to the central arguments. This is one; there’s not a wasted word.'

Mark Osiel - University of Iowa

'Victor Peskin has written an outstanding book that should command immediate attention from anyone interested in international justice and international human rights. Emerging from years of field research in the Balkans, Rwanda, Arusha, and the Hague, Peskin concludes that state cooperation is a central but often overlooked issue that shapes how international human rights courts operate. Peskin’s insight is straightforward, but it has profound implications. Peskin writes exceptionally well to boot, and he benefits from telling some extraordinary tales in the history of the tribunals. This is a terrific and riveting piece of scholarship.'

Scott Straus - University of Wisconsin, Madison

'Drawing on more than three hundred interviews in Rwanda and the Balkans and at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), Peskin provides a penetrating international relations analysis of international law, highlighting crucial interplays among tribunals, states, and international organizations … Through an innovative conceptual framework and dedicated field research, Peskin illuminates the complexities of prosecuting high-ranking suspects whom states often wish to shield. Consequently, Peskin provides indispensable insight into the challenges that international justice institutions face in securing state cooperation – and, perhaps most important, into the sparse moments when the ICTY and ICTR have overcome those challenges to deliver something other than victor's justice.'

Source: Ethics and International Affairs

'The book is compelling and well researched. The ample references make the book also a useful source from a research perspective. The maps and timelines … are very helpful to place particular events and personalities in their proper context.'

Source: Journal of African Law

'Victor Peskin approaches his study of the International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and for Rwanda (ICTR) as a political scientist rather than as a lawyer, and as such has produced an invaluable guide to the politics of contemporary international justice. … This book fills a significant gap in the literature, and does so by telling a compelling story backed up by information gleaned from eight months of fieldwork and hundreds of interviews. Peskin has put in the graft and it shows: this is a work of narrative detail rather than a sweeping analysis of the tribunals from on high, revealing the controversies, conflict, public shaming and private negotiating that have shaped and constrained the pursuit of international justice through the tribunals.'

Source: International Affairs