Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 has shown the world the critical importance of whether and
how to punish heads of state heads of government and sundry strong men when accused of crimes
of aggression genocide war crimes and other crimes against humanity. In For Crimes Against
Humanity former President of the International Criminal Court Chile Eboe-Osuji probes the
history and theory of the concept of immunity for heads of state underscoring tribunal
achievements pointing out gaps in the existing framework of accountability and the hypocrisies
that produced them and offering workable solutions to the loopholes that government leaders
still use to escape consequences today. Eboe-Osuji traces the development of international law
from the pre-World War I era that left wars of aggression as the prerogative of sovereigns able
to wage them through the peacetime conferences of the Hauge at the turn of the 20th century
the momentous Article 227 of the Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 which communicated the
resolve of the Allies and Associated Powers to prosecute German Emperor and King of Prussia
Kaiser Wilhelm II before an international tribunal how the legal norms applied in the
post-WWII Nuremberg trial transformed the norms of modern international law how 1990's Africa
breathed new life into arguments against immunity for heads of state and how modern-day Russia
flouts those laws with Putin's war of aggression on Ukraine. Going as far back as the Middle
Ages and the ancient doctrine of the divine right of kings and concluding with a fresh new
proposal for the ways in which international law can be shored up to prosecute those leaders
who wage wars of aggression Eboe-Osuji investigates the journey of international law's
rejection of immunity for anyone - including heads of state in particular - when they are
suspected or accused of atrocities that international law has proscribed as crimes. The result
is the definitive account of a profoundly vital principle for international relations and
global humanity.
