This chapter discusses the process toward the eventual adoption of a Statute for a permanent International Criminal Court (ICC) and the adoption of Statutes of various ad hoc international criminal courts. The process can be conceptualized in terms of several distinct phases: abortive early attempts (1919–45); the establishment of the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals in the aftermath of the Second World War (1945–7); the post-Cold War ‘new world order’ and the establishment by the UN Security Council of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (1993–4); the drafting and adoption of the ICC Statute (1994–8); and the establishment of ad hoc hybrid criminal courts.
