This book provide an analysis of cases ffeaturing complete defenses before international criminal courts. The conclusion of the analysis is that international criminal courts recognize most complete defenses in principle. However, they consistently reject them in practice. Courts thus tend to say : insanity is available as a complete defense...but not in this case. this conclusion raises questions as to the compatibility between complete defenses ans international crimes : when they are never accepted in practice, should such defenses be available at all?