2.1 Introduction Much of the legal scholarship concerned with international criminal law (ICL) – an evolving body of rules which prohibits the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes of genocide as well as crimes against peace and, more recently, crimes of aggression – examines major insti- tutions applying those rules to particular cases. Academic textbooks produced by highly reputable publishing presses focus on “the crimes that are dealt with by international courts and tribunals as well as the procedures that police the investigation and prosecution of these crimes.” 1 Efforts are made to offer “a coherent theoretical framework to the patchwork of disparate rules, principles, concepts, and legal constructs that at present make up international criminal law.” 2 While such textbooks include cursory descriptions of the establishment of various ICL institutions, few mainstream accounts appear genuinely con- cerned with the complex circumstances giving rise to international criminal trials. Critical scholarship does, however, take these circumstances seriously by recognising that, despite “a surge in scholarship of ICL, in institutions, and in the public debate, […] the structures constructing international criminal law remain largely unchecked and unquestioned.” 3 Taking its cue from mainstream accounts and critical scholarship, this chap- ter argues that propitious politico-strategic circumstances are necessary but, on their own, insuf fcient factors to fully explain the rise of the International Military Tribunal (IMT) for the Trial of German War Criminals, the Interna- tional Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) and the International Criminal Court (ICC). It begins by illuminating the relationship between shifting politico-strategic circum- stances and the design of those institutions before signalling the important politico-economic dimension of international criminal trials. This chapter then 1 Cryer et al., 2011, back fap. 2 Cassese, 2008, p. xiii. 3 Schwöbel, 2014, p. 2. 2 Historicising international criminal trials within the modernist project Damien Rogers