Faced with injustice, what can a concerned citizen do? In 1933, when
Hitler blamed Communists for setting the Reichstag on fire, European and
American lawyers responded by staging a countertrial, which proved them
innocent and eventually led to their release, launching a new unofficial
way of advancing human rights. This book is the first full account of
citizens' tribunals. It tells the history of such tribunals from this
first success to the mixed record of subsequent efforts: the Moscow show
trials, the American war in Vietnam, Japanese sexual slavery, the
Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and the excesses of global capitalism.