A History of Political Trials from Charles I to Saddam Hussein John Laughland Peter Lang, 315pp, £12.99

The 18 succinct studies in this book range from Charles I and Louis XVI to Saddam Hussein, but date mostly from the Second World War and later. They call attention to two things: the use of judicial process for political purposes and, more intriguingly, the incursion of law, with its universal values, into the politics of sovereign states, with their particular concerns and limits. This second issue is a serious and rather overlooked phenomenon. Laws used to be made by states (and of course still are), but nowadays states are increasingly constrained by legal concerns and engagements imposed by international enactments that belittle states and ignore their cultural diversity. Hence a clash of authorities that adds to the already crowded cluster of hazards in the conduct of world affairs.

Laughland's handling of this problem is valuable not only intrinsically but also for its balanced tone in matters too often obfuscated by over enthusiastic nationalists and internationalists. He does, however, glide over an important distinction. A number of his cases are not so much clashes as simply an abuse of the judicial system to settle scores or confirm a revolution, a disfigurement of both law and politics which leaves both diminished. Such cases are a perennial feature of wars between and within states and it is difficult to see any end to them except through the disappearance of violence in public affairs.

Laughland allows his just concerns to lead him to a serious error, or at least overstatement. He describes the 12 trials conducted by the Americans at Nuremberg following the international trial of 1945-46 of the Nazi leaders as politically motivated from the outset and terminated in response to political pressures, notably by the imperative to secure Germany as an ally in the Cold War. Political considerations did exist, but were never dominant. After the international trial there was strong revulsion against a further such trial because co-operation with the Russians had been embarrassing. Existing plans for less ambitious trials therefore became more important. Only the Americans took steps to do this.

Their plan for 16, later reduced to 12, was settled and approved in June 1949 and carried through; it was not stopped by Cold War calculations. The plan had its drawbacks. Chief among them were a general aversion all over Europe to yet more war trials; difficulties in recruiting staff, from judges downward, and the desire of existing staff to go home; the fact that the trials turned out more complex and longer than expected; and reluctance - by President Truman himself and members of his cabinet - to go on funding the trials. The Prague coup of 1948 revived the fears of 1945 that the Russians were about to engulf Europe one way or another. These sharpened incentives to get out of Germany but they did not determine the fate of the US programme and Cold War politics had no more to do with its conclusion than with its inception.

That said, this book is a welcome contribution to contemporary history - with apologies to Charles I and Louis XVI for doubting whether the injustices done to them have much relevance today. The problem of law v politics is part of the problem of state v superstate. It is accentuated by irreversible movements such as globalisation and the development of humanitarian law, with its universal principles and apparatus. These are not going to abate, nor is the state about to disappear, even though it is not quite what it was. The resulting clashes have to be handled with regard to the temper of the times. Laughland makes readers aware of the hazards.

One case in the public eye is Darfur: should President el-Bashir of Sudan be put on trial for, in effect, multiple murder and if so, by whom? The case is strong enough legally to justify an indictment and the circumstances are appalling and pitiable in the highest degree. But objectors warn that it may well lead to more murders, misery, starvation; these fears are not implausible. There is no way of weighing with precision the case for instituting legal proceedings against the case for not doing so. This is an inescapable dilemma and it is not peculiar to Darfur. In many places in the world similar clashes arise.

Trials - the international trial of Nazi leaders at Nuremberg among them - are a way to clarify and assert the law. So, lawyers like them. But statesmen have other priorities and other responsibi lities. Lawyers do what lawyers are for, but the political world is not trained to be so constricted or precise and is forever juggling with what, by definition, it cannot know about - the future. The politician has no tidy answer or rule of thumb and Laughland wisely propounds none. (If he did this would be a bad book.)

Beyond these two professional tribes, the business of the critic and observer is to inject his pennyworth after mastering as best he may the particulars of each problem as it occurs and so contribute to making things better rather than worse. This is what Laughland does. It might seem a minimalist approach to public participation in current affairs, but it is more appropriate and seemly than volumes or columns of rhetorical indignation.

Peter Calvocoressi was an adviser to the international prosecutors at the Nuremberg trial of leading Nazis in 1945-46. The ninth edition of his "World Politics Since 1945" will be published by Longman in October

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