How does the trial function? What are the tools, in terms of legal principle, scientific knowledge, social norms and political practice, which underpin this most important decision-making process?Focusing both on English criminal, military and parliamentary trials, and upon national and international trials for war crimes, this book illuminates the diverse forces that have shaped trials during the modern era. The book’s dual emphasis – on modern English legal history and modern war crimes trials – enables it to cross several disciplines and appeal to a much more diverse readership than is usual for legal history volumes. The contributors approach their subject from a variety of perspectives – legal history, social history, political history, sociology and international law.