Book excerpt: When faced with injustice what can a concerned citizen do? In 1933, when Hitler tried to blame Communists for setting the German parliament on fire, a group of European and American lawyers responded by staging a countertrial, which proved them innocent and eventually led to their release. A new unofficial way of advancing human rights was thus launched. This groundbreaking study narrates the history of such 'citizens tribunals' from this first astonishing success to the mixed record of subsequent efforts-including tribunals on the Moscow show trials, the American war in Vietnam, Japanese sexual slavery, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and the excesses of 'global capitalism'.