After dedicating much of his career to the establishment of the International Criminal Court, M. Cherif Bassiouni -- often called the "father" of international criminal law -- startled an audience at an international law conference in Washington, D.C. on Thursday when he called some international criminal tribunals shams and declared others to be mired in bureaucratic failures. He asserted that there really is no political will by States to have an independent international criminal justice system. Experience has shown that States can create obstacles to justice and international accountability by intentionally underfunding some efforts, making access to data difficult, supporting tribunals premised on little more than window-dressing, and creating overly bureaucratic international criminal systems. He never blatantly said the ICC will dissolve, but he implied its current overly bureaucratic framework is leading to the Court's irrelevancy. Whereas his quixotic dream has been to build an international criminal system to stop national politicians from determining who gets prosecuted, the hero of international criminal justice now implies that his vision is unachievable, at least within any foreseeable future. As such, Bassiouni predicts that there will be a transformation of international law and its institutions. "International criminal justice will take another turn," he said. "And maybe it's a turn for the best." Specifically, we likely will see a shift from supranational criminal courts to national courts, which he said will be more successful in prosecuting the guilty. The challenge he put forth to the lawyers and soon-to-be international lawyers in the room is how to use international law both to connect the national courts and to provide for effective domestic prosecutions of international crimes. More