INTRODUCTION

Is historical debate incidental or indispensable to international criminal trials? Without a doubt, the historical record left by international criminal trials is indispensable for historians and political scientists seeking to comprehend an armed conflict. No student of the Balkans or Rwanda can afford to ignore the Tribunals' judgments and the new evidence revealed in the trials, from insider and eyewitness testimony to telephone intercepts and the massive archives of government documents detailing the operation of local, regional, and national political institutions before and during the conflicts. Yet the reverse is not exactly true: historical accounts produced by historians and political scientists are not always indispensable to international criminal trials. The majority of trials have proceeded without academic experts, and no accused has ever been convicted on the basis of historical evidence alone.