Former Bosnian Serb leader and war crimes suspect Radovan Karadzic arrived in The Hague today to stand trial for genocide. News of his surprise arrest on a Belgrade bus last week came just days after the International Criminal Court indicted Sudan's president for genocide in Darfur.

Most people in the West generally assume that war crimes trials are a good thing. But do international tribunals actually deliver justice? John Laughland, author of a book on the history of political trials, thinks not.

"In my view these tribunals should be closed down," Laughland says. "They are a law unto themselves. They are not administering justice but injustice."

It may seem a radical stand but Laughland, a writer and academic, presents some persuasive arguments. He says international criminal tribunals diminish the sovereignty of individual states and that they have consistently abused judicial norms. They admit anonymous evidence, trample over the rights of defendants and make up the rules as they go along.

The men hauled before these courts to date include former Serb strongman Slobodan Milosevic, former Liberian President Charles Taylor, former Congolese Vice-President Jean-Pierre Bemba and various Rwandan and Congolese militia leaders. Whether they have done wicked things or not is irrelevant - they all deserve a fair trial.

National courts, as part of an overall system, are subject to checks and balances - they can't just make up their own rules. But Laughland argues that international courts are not embedded in any system or accountable to the people over whom they claim jurisdiction.

He says the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), which tried Milosevic and will try Karadzic, has changed its rules every few months and each revision has downgraded the rights of the defendant.

On top of that, the use of anonymous witnesses (some 40 percent at the ICTY, according to Laughland) denies defendants their fundamental right to cross examine their accusers.

At the ICTY's sister tribunal for crimes committed during the 1994 Rwandan genocide, Laughland says the defence team is convinced the anonymous witnesses are a "small band of paid story-tellers" who spin whatever yarn the prosecution wants.

Laughland, who has written a strong critique of the Milosevic trial, says the fact the former Serbian leader was tried in absentia when he fell ill and that the court imposed a defence counsel on him against his will are yet further examples of how war crimes tribunals flagrantly violate judicial norms.

The length of trials is also an outrage, says Laughland. The Milosevic trial lasted four years but will probably be beaten by some of those at the Rwandan tribunal. Suspects are innocent until proven guilty yet some have been locked up for a decade. In Britain and elsewhere, we know there would quite rightly be an outcry if defendants were imprisoned for years without trial.

A work in progress

These are just a handful of the objections Laughland put forward at a debate on global justice at the ICA gallery in London last week. But his arguments didn't wash with everyone.

Philippe Sands QC, a British barrister and specialist in international law, admitted there were plenty of problems with the courts but said they were a work in progress.

The International Criminal Court, the world's first permanent war crimes tribunal, was set up in 2002 to continue the work started by the temporary tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.

Sands said the ICC was needed because it had been shown that national courts do not prosecute their own war criminals.

He also rejected the view that the international courts were above the law, pointing out that judges had recently halted the ICC's first trial because the prosecution's failure to disclose some evidence might prevent a fair hearing.

But Sands agreed there was one powerful argument against the ICC - its lopsidedness. So far it has sought the arrest of people accused of atrocities in Congo, Uganda and Sudan. It's unlikely that the court will ever pursue any senior American or British figures.

Sands said he was off for his summer holiday and, as ever, he had told his colleagues not to disturb him under any circumstances. There is one exception to his holiday rule, Sands says - he wants to be called immediately if there's a move to indict Tony Blair.

If you're interested in international justice I'd recommend this article What is global justice and who is it for? The ICC's first five years by Marlies Glasius, a very readable account of progress so far and how victims of atrocities view the court..

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