This shift appears in the international arena, involving both international criminal tribunals and international humanitarian law, and on the national level, with regard to the expanding criminal responsibility of corporations. In national legal systems, concepts of universality of jurisdiction and protective jurisdiction have gained added force. International institutions and, more specifically, international tribunals have enhanced the development of international criminal law. The future pace of progress will depend primarily on the establishment and the efficacy of the international criminal court and on the future success of the Yugoslav and Rwanda tribunals. A broad vision of the various principles of international law pertaining to prosecution of violations of humanitarian law shows that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Some commentators choose, however, a more fragmented perspective.
They argue, for example, that because the Geneva Conventions establish a system of universal jurisdiction over grave breaches, that jurisdiction is limited to the courts of the powers concerned, thus excluding international criminal tribunals. Others argue that because the Genocide Convention conferred jurisdiction on the state where the act was committed or on such international penal tribunals as may have jurisdiction, prosecution by third states under the principle of universality of jurisdiction was precluded. International lawyers should avoid tunnel vision, looking instead at universal jurisdiction in relation to, rather than in isolation from, the jurisdiction of international criminal tribunals. Although the enumerated offences subject to the jurisdiction of international criminal tribunals should not be conflated with international offences subject to national jurisdiction under the universality of jurisdiction principle, there is a clear synergy between the two. Indeed, the Nuremberg tribunals invoked the fact that certain acts were criminal under either customary international law or the general principles of criminal justice of the international community as an answer to ex post facto challenges to its jurisdiction.