Stringent laws in Canada and Germany punish foreigners who violate the conventions. William L. Calley was convicted of war crimes for ordering the 1968 My Lai massacre of unarmed civilians during the Vietnam War. Prior to the Clinton administration, the United States consistently opposed the idea because it worried that the country's leaders would be tried for the bombing of Hiroshima and its 1986 attacks on civilian targets in Tripoli, Libya. Since Nuremberg, the most prominent trials of alleged Nazi war criminals have been held outside Germany. And in 1987, a French court sentenced Gestapo chief Klaus Barbie to life in prison for violating similar French laws.
Complaints abound that Nuremberg was a kangaroo court .
The post-World War II trials in Tokyo , organized by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, tried 28 Japanese leaders on charges of mistreating Allied soldiers and instigating unjustified aggression. Many historians also deem these trials unjust. The court has indicted 77 people, mostly Serbs accused of participating in the massacres of Muslims. In 1994, the U.N. Security Council set up a tribunal in Arusha, Tanzania, to investigate the mass murders in Rwanda . This tribunal has indicted important figures thanks to the cooperation of Hutu and Tutsi leaders who have turned in their own accused tribesmen.