Teachers of international criminal law, a nascent field (at least as far as faculties of law are concerned), face a challenge when asked by students to recommend a single textbook. A growing number of international criminal law textbooks exist, but not all of them would qualify as a vademecum: some are too narrow in their coverage, focusing almost obsessively on prosecution of the so-called ‘core’ crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression before international criminal tribunals, to the exclusion of other crimes of international concern and national courts; others, while more inclusive, are not always reliable, tending to present idiosyncratic opinions as positive law. With the arrival on the scene of Robert Cryer, Håkan Friman, Darryl Robinson and Elizabeth Wilmshurst's An Introduction to International Criminal Law and Procedure, lecturers' minds can rest easier. The book is the best general text on international criminal law so far. It has the great merit of combining inclusiveness of coverage, a detailed but discerningly exhibited knowledge of those areas it chooses to tackle and, for by far and away the most part, reliability with a pithy and accessible writing style and presentation.

Part A (‘Introduction’) comprises two nicely judged chapters, the first entitled ‘What is International Criminal Law?’ and the second ‘The Objectives of International Criminal Law’. Chapter 1 is refreshing in its transparent, nuanced and pragmatic approach to the concepts of an international crime (the authors' answer: there is no single answer, but for purely practical purposes they will stick to the ‘core’ crimes) and of international criminal law (they will deal with questions related to domestic criminal law, such as the international rules on national jurisdiction, only insofar as they are brought to bear on international crimes), an approach which disavows any claim to authoritativeness or principled superiority. Chapter 2 is a clear-eyed and healthy corrective to ‘profligate … assertions about the benefits and purposes of prosecutions’ for the core crimes (page 18).

Part B (‘Prosecutions in National Courts’) gives a concise and useful account of the international rules on national jurisdiction (chapter 3), of miscellaneous aspects related to national prosecutions for international crimes (chapter 4) and of state co-operation with respect to national proceedings (chapter 5). The second of these, which draws on an impressive array of national legislation and case-law, includes a welcome discussion of the application, or non-application as the case may be, of the ne bis in idem guarantee as between concurrent national jurisdictions. Immunities, however, might usefully have been mentioned, simply by way of cross-reference to their discussion in chapter 20, in the discussion on obstacles to national prosecutions.

Part C (‘International Prosecutions’) starts in chapter 6 with an introductory historical account of, inter alia, Nuremberg and Tokyo, which gives the latter more than the usual token nod. The history and the jurisdictional and structural basics of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR), along with an appraisal of each Tribunal, follow in the relatively brief chapter 7. Chapter 8 provides a strikingly good overview of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Its treatment of complementarity is alone worth its weight in responsibly sourced gold. Part C is rounded off with an instructive chapter (chapter 9) on other courts with international elements.

The nitty-gritty of genocide (chapter 10), crimes against humanity (chapter 11), war crimes (chapter 12) and aggression (chapter 13) makes up the content of Part D (‘Substantive Law of International Crimes’), along with a brief treatment in chapter 14 of what the authors term ‘transnational’ crimes, by which they mean the raft of ‘non-core’ crimes provided for in the other international criminal conventions, including the various terrorist offences (with a further examination of terrorism as such) and torture (looking both at and beyond the Torture Convention). The key issues are handled with assurance, and the level of detail is well judged. There is a disappointing woolliness, however, to the authors' definition of ‘transnational’ crimes—a category which, as it is, is devoid of conceptual basis—as ‘crimes which have actual or potential transboundary effects and crimes which are intra-State but which offend a fundamental value of the international community’ (page 281). How does the first limb differentiate the crimes the book has in mind, viz the range of crimes created by the many ‘suppression conventions’ (another unhappy term, given that the Genocide Convention, the Apartheid Convention and various international humanitarian conventions oblige the suppression of certain ‘core’ crimes), from any number of purely municipal crimes? And how does the second limb distinguish the ‘suppression’ crimes from the ‘core’ crimes?

It is not obvious what chapter 15 (‘General Principles of Liability’), chapter 16 (‘Defences/Grounds for Excluding Criminal Responsibility’) and chapter 18 (‘Sentencing, Penalties and Reparations to Victims’) are doing lumped together with chapter 17 (‘Procedures of International Criminal Investigations and Prosecutions’) in Part E (‘Principles and Procedures of International Prosecutions’). One might have thought at least the first two to be aspects of the substantive law of international crimes, as dealt with in Part D, or alternatively to comprise a discrete part along with sentencing and penalties. Similarly, chapter 17 might have sat better in a dedicated part with chapter 19 (‘State Cooperation with International Courts and Tribunals’), which resides rather uncomfortably in Part F (‘Relationship Between National and International Systems’) with a chapter (chapter 20) on immunities. In terms of content, however, chapters 15, 16 and 18 are models of the textbook writer's art, while chapters 17 and 19 neatly and fruitfully compare and contrast the ICTY and ICTR with the ICC. But chapter 20 is misleading in its repeated, confident assertion that, as a matter of positive international law, subject-matter immunity poses no procedural bar to prosecution for a ‘core’ crime. As much as one might wish that the question were settled, it is not, as illustrated, on the one hand, by the post-publication refusal by the French prosecuting authorities to investigate a complaint against former US Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld in respect of torture at Abu Ghraib prison; on the other, by the recent statement by the Italian Corte di Cassazione in the Lozano case that state immunity poses no bar to prosecution for an international crime contrary to jus cogens; and by the fact that the International Law Commission has only recently embarked on a study of the immunity of state officials from foreign criminal jurisdiction.

The book concludes with a very good assessment of the future of international criminal law (chapter 21), which thankfully emphasizes that ‘triumphalism about international criminal law would be misplaced’ (page 448) and that the ICC ‘should not be the cynosure of international criminal law’, given that ‘[d]omestic proceedings have many advantages over international ones’ (page 454).

While the book's synthesis and analysis are mostly of a high quality, they are accompanied at times by minor irritants in the form of sloppy statements on peripheral points. Contradictory statements are also to be found here and there. But these trifling criticisms should not be taken overly to undermine the conclusion that this readable book succeeds admirably in its aim to be ‘a manageable and useful introduction to the field’ (page xi).