This is the first in-depth study of the first three ICC trials: an engaging, accessible text meant for specialists and students, for legal advocates and a wide range of professionals concerned with diverse cultures, human rights, and restorative justice. Now with an updated postscript for the paperback edition, it offers a balanced view on persistent tensions and controversies. Separate chapters analyze the working realities of central African armed conflicts, finding reasons for their surprising resistance to ICC legal formulas. The book dissects the Court's structural dynamics, which were designed to steer an elusive middle course between high moral ideals and hard political realities. Detailed chapters provide vivid accounts of courtroom encounters with four Congolese suspects. The mixed record of convictions, acquittals, dissents, and appeals, resulting from these trials, provides a map of distinct fault-lines within the ICC legal code, and suggests a rocky path ahead for the Court's next ventures.

‘Richard Gaskins provides a fine introduction to the workings of the International Criminal Court in this immensely readable account of some of the first prosecutions, presenting the legal dimension but also the drama both inside and outside the courtroom in this remarkable laboratory of international justice.'

William A. Schabas - Middlesex University London

‘When confronted with the workings of any new court, the uninitiated need confident, articulate guides. In Gaskins, readers have one who knows his stuff but also understands, from long experience working with students, exactly where they are likely to struggle. Compassionate yet incisive, he explains where the high-minded idealism of the human rights world grates against the frustrating, banal realities of evidence-collection and the administration of justice in countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo. It's an account drafted by an expert with a big heart, a meticulous grasp of the workings of universal law, and an empathetic understanding of the vagaries of human behaviour.'

Michela Wrong

‘This work is a treasure. It provides an invaluable testimony of the ICC experience as ‘laboratory of justice’. It takes us on a journey from perspectives on the ground to the Courtroom, and then back again, with a unique voice, an engaging style, and compelling argument, combining faith with thoughtful critique. It is an outstanding contribution which deserves to be widely read and studied beyond the legal field.’

Carsten Stahn - Professor of International Criminal Law and Global Justice, Leiden University and Queen’s University Belfast

‘Richard Gaskins carefully unveils the ICC’s operations in the context of a larger moral and institutional enquiry. Looking beyond its strict legal challenges, this book also addresses the Court’s fundamental political problem of trying to cramp complex protracted conflicts into a logic of individual criminal responsibility with the unavoidable frustrations that this tension raises. A powerful argument for analytical complexity in a judicial architecture that remains characterized by paradigmatic simplification.’

Timothy Raeymaekers - University of Zurich

‘In this terrific book, Richard Gaskins provides a nuanced, measured account of the first three trials at the International Criminal Court. Gaskins excels in placing the trials in multiple contexts, deftly showing how the prosecutorial and human rights narratives of atrocity fit poorly with the realities of politics and violence in Eastern Congo. Anyone seeking to understand the challenges and complexities of contemporary international criminal justice must read this book.’

Scott Straus - University of California, Berkeley

‘Richard Gaskins takes the reader into the sobering reality of the International Criminal Court with this in-depth account. Focussing on the first Congo trials he describes the politics, failing investigations, collapsing narratives, crumbling evidence, disputed legal concepts and judges disagreeing - about acquittals and convictions. This revealing book is a must-read for anyone who wants to get a deep understanding of this court, caught up in the fog of justice.’

Tjitske Lingsma - freelance journalist

‘The International Criminal Court used to be called the International Congo Court because of its initial cases targeting Congolese rebel leaders. This book is the most detailed and critical account existing on these Congo Trials, their preludes, and their outcomes. In an engaged, compassionate yet judicious style, Richard Gaskins takes his readers right into the heart of an institution in search of its own international legitimacy.’

Koen Vlassenroot - Ghent University