Commentaries by David M. Crane | Founding Chief Prosecutor of the UN Special Court for Sierra Leone

Eighty years ago, on May 3, 1946, the International Military Tribunal for the Far East opened its proceedings in Tokyo. The world was still reckoning with the devastation of the Second World War, and the tribunal represented one of humanity’s earliest attempts to articulate a legal response to mass atrocity, aggressive war, and systematic violations [...]

At a moment when the international system is being tested by the most brazen act of interstate aggression in Europe since World War II, the US House of Representatives has an opportunity—and a responsibility—to reinforce the rule of law. H.Res. 777, now before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, deserves immediate passage. The resolution, drafted with [...]

The reported executions of four Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) by Russian forces near the village of Veterynarne in the Kharkiv region on April 11 stand as a clear and prosecutable violation of the Geneva Conventions. According to Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office, Russian forces stormed Ukrainian positions and executed four as-yet unidentified soldiers, deliberately shooting [...]

At dawn in Iran, the state speaks in the language it knows best: silence and secrecy. This week, as global attention fixed on the escalating confrontation between Washington and Tehran, the Islamic Republic executed four political prisoners in two days. Their names—Babak Alipour, Pouya Ghobadi, Akbar Daneshvarkar, Mohammad Taghavi‑Sangdehi—will not appear in ceasefire proposals or [...]

The establishment of the Special Tribunal on the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine (STCA) marks a historic moment in the defense of the international legal order. Russia’s full‑scale invasion of Ukraine represents the most blatant act of aggression in Europe since the Second World War. The international community has responded with determination, culminating in the [...]

The most dangerous wars are not the ones forced upon nations, but the ones they begin believing they can control. As the United States edges deeper into open conflict with Iran—a conflict Washington initiated with the confidence of a country accustomed to quick, decisive victories—we are drifting toward a strategic defeat of our own making. [...]

The modern international order rests on a foundational promise: states must resolve disputes peacefully, and force may be used only as a last resort and only within the bounds of law. The US helped build this system after World War II, embedding these principles in the UN Charter and in its own Constitution. Yet the [...]

A recent investigation by RFE/RL’s Schemes unit revealed that a senior Russian commander shared a meme among fellow officers that read, “It’s not a war crime if it was fun.” The sentiment is shocking, but it is not surprising—particularly given the context in which it was shared: alongside messages documenting the mutilation of prisoners, the [...]

Paramilitary forces in Sudan unleashed “a wave of intense violence…shocking in its scale and brutality” during their final offensive to seize the city of El Fasher last October, according to the UN human rights office. That clinical phrasing barely conveys what actually happened: a city starved, surrounded, and then assaulted in a way that left [...]

The war in Ukraine has entered a phase defined not by movement but by immovable political realities. Russia will not relinquish the Donbas or Crimea, territories it now treats as integral to its domestic narrative and strategic posture. Ukraine cannot accept any settlement that legitimizes territorial seizure by force without violating its constitution, undermining its [...]