What happens when international peacekeepers turn their backs on people seeking protection? Recently, a Dutch court decided that a government can be held legally responsible for the failures of peacekeeping troops it has sent abroad. For victims' families, the ruling is an important victory, one that not only identifies the peacekeepers' failures but paves the way for compensation. For countries that dispatch peacekeepers to crisis zones around the world, however, the decision could be a worrisome precedent.

Last spring, U.S. officials got a rude surprise from the Netherlands. It came in the form of a letter from Fatou Bensouda, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The subject was Afghanistan, and the letter described evidence that U.S. personnel had abused more than two dozen detainees held in that country, mostly between 2003 and 2006. The prosecutor invited the U.S. government to provide information to the court about those cases and its broader detention practices in Afghanistan.

At the beginning of April, Palestine submitted applications to join more than a dozen international organizations and treaties. The move was a calibrated step in Palestine's elaborate dance toward recognition as a fully sovereign state. The bid provoked all the expected responses: The Palestinians' backers applauded the move, while Israeli and American officials argued that "unilateral" steps toward recognition were provocative without a comprehensive peace deal. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned "the Palestinians will get a state only though direct negotiations, and not through empty declarations."

At the United Nations this week, senior U.S. officials have been blasting Russian officials for disregarding established international law and rules by manhandling Ukrainian territory. In Geneva, with much less public attention, U.S. officials have been on the receiving end of accusations that it, too, is circumventing international law.

On March 19, 2011, as Western warplanes began pummeling Muammar al-Qaddafi's forces in Libya, prosecutors at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague were preparing their own offensive. With the aid of communications intercepts and testimony from defectors, they raced to investigate attacks by the Libyan regime on demonstrators and political opponents.