Does international criminal justice make history or does it write history? Is its job to write history? Do interna- tional criminal judgments have a greater or lesser value than the work of a historian? This contribution tries to answer these questions, affirming the argument that it would be good to always look at the historical narrative of international criminal justice with a certain skepticism. The work is divided into three parts. The first carries out some considerations on the different nature of the judicial adjudication with respect to the historical one; the second focuses on some structural features that illustrate the limits of the historical investigation carried out by judges in international criminal trials; the third reflects on what is the space left for the historical narrative within the judgments.
This paper traces the long - albeit recent - journey of international criminal justice, meant as justice administered by international judicial mechanisms against individuals who commit serious crimes that raise international con- cern. This reconstruction departs from the Lieber Code and the original core of war crimes, passing through the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials, the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, till the International Criminal Court. In addition to providing a description of the history of international criminal jus- tice, this paper discusses both the most relevant contributions offered in this field by international jurisprudence, as well as some critical points of this jurisprudence. Finally, the contribution offers some reflections on the future of international criminal justice administered by the permanent Court.