The road from the The Hague Peace Conferences to the International Criminal Court was long and complicated. International Criminal Law is currently the fastest growing and most frequently used part of the library collection. The library collection on international criminal law, in which the first edition of Grotius' De Iure Belli ac Pacis of 1625 is a priceless gem, is one of the largest collections in the world. The alert-service on the website of the library indicates a frequent use of the international criminal law section by people from all over the globe; this community is also well served by the online Bibliography on International Criminal Law. Books, documents and journals on this subject are rarely at home, but always 'out', or 'reserved': second copies of recent 'bestsellers' are needed.

The arrival of the complete Nuremberg Tribunal dossiers at the Peace Palace.

Nuremberg as a starting point Apart from some international prosecutions after World War I, e.g. the ‘Leipziger Prozesse’ for German war crimes in the first World War (on which in a recent study Gerd Hankel has written extensively), and the 'tribunal that never was' to prosecute Wilhelm II of Hohenzollern, formerly the German Kaiser, the real history of international criminal law began after World War II. The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg was the starting point that most recently lead to the establishment of the International Criminal Court. Sets of the original documents of the Nuremberg and Tokyo Tribunals are kept in the Peace Palace. The Nuremberg files are in the custody of the International Court of Justice and may be consulted only after special permission of the Registrar, the Tokyo documents rest in the Peace Palace Library, and are freely accessible.

Not surprisingly, then, the Recueil des Cours lists among its contributors many international criminal law scholars who did their research in the library. The material on war crimes after World War II is abundant. The documentation about the Vietnam war, the war in Afghanistan, the events in the Belgian Congo, the genocidal practices of some governments against their own subjects, the massacres of the civilian population in Cambodia and Bangladesh, the atrocities in the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda testify of the violations of international law. Genocide, terrorism and rape are still very present in our world, despite a Genocide Convention, anti-terrorism legislation and numerous other initiatives.

Dutch Justice Bernard Röing of the Tokyo Tribunal and his book The Tokyo Trial and Beyond.

Completeness in the area of international criminal law is a top priority for the Library, since so many international legal institutions are located in The Hague. In view of 'The Hague: Legal Capital of the World', the library is becoming the 'Legal Information Center of the World', offering its services to the international legal community. An active acquisition policy tries to keep pace with the rising amount of literature, in paper as well on the internet. Storage and accessibility of electronic information is becoming increasingly important. The International Court of Justice, the two International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia (presided over byTed Meron) and Rwanda and the International Criminal Court, the professors and students of the Hague Academy of International Law and many other scholars rely heavily on the library for their research. It is With justified pride, then, that we read in Philippe Sands's From Nuremberg to The Hague the the personal dedication "To the library of the Peace palace, which has done so much for international justice. The Hague, 13 xi 2003."