Belated Justice: Judging the Past to Build the Future

Belated trials for international crimes are public causes célèbres. In these cases, the seriousness of the offences justifies an exception to the statute of limitations, which means that they remain contemporary even if they were committed a long time ago: Here, criminal law directly intervenes in the relationship between past and present. The focus of this essay will be on the non-applicability of the statute of limitations as an institution that legally allows individuals to be tried and convicted, and on the conditions required for such proceedings to be considered acceptable, identifying a de iure condendo solution.