In Kosovo, America claimed its war was a ''humanitarian intervention,'' in Afghanistan, ''self-defense,'' and in Iraq, it claimed the authority of the Security Council of the United Nations.

Yet each of these wars was illegal according to established rules of international law. According to these rules, illegal wars fall within the category of ''supreme international crimes''. So how come the war crimes tribunals never manage to turn their sights on America and always wind up putting America''s enemies - ''the usual suspects'' - on trial?

This new book by renowned scholar Michael Mandel offers a critical account of America''s illegal wars and a war crimes system that has granted America''s leaders an unjust and dangerous impunity, effectively encouraging their illegal wars and the war crimes that always flow from them.