I wish to acknowledge the following individuals without whose support and assistance this book would not be possible. First, I wish to acknowledge that without the tolerance and support from my family, this work would never have been completed given the long hours, days and indeed months spent away from home in researching, consulting and travelling to learn and experience fi rst hand some of the challenges and issues covered in this book. Second, the contribution of ideas and challenges from academic and practitioner colleagues in Canada and around the world, including friends and colleagues at the International Criminal Court while I was a visiting professional there and at Harvard Law School while on sabbatical there as a visiting fellow, that immensely enriched my approach to the extremely daunting subjects covered in this book. The list of names is too lengthy and I do not want inadvertently to leave anyone out. Finally, I wish to acknowledge the immensely important contribution of my research assistants Andrew Coleman and Cassandra Bajan, whose tireless research, editing and contribution of ideas and encouragement have been critical to the completion of this work. However, given the subject matter of this book, I also want to acknowledge and dedicate this book to all the individual champions, civil society groups, governments and international organisations that understand the need to persevere in the struggle for human rights and dignity in the institutions of global governance and in the global private sector, even when the odds are against them, because they believe in the ‘better angels’ of humankind. This is especially critical at the time of handing in the fi nal manuscript of the book on 21 August 2013 when the world was horrifi ed by the scenes of men, women and scores of children dying from a chemical weapons attack in a suburb of Damascus which the US alleges was carried out by the Syrian Government. Military action was threatened by the US, Britain and France but withdrawn when it became clear that public and legislative sentiment was against it. Instead, with the involvement of Russia, a framework agreement was developed with the US to assist Syria in destroying its chemical weapons. It remains to be seen whether even this will be accomplished. Yet the atrocities against civilians continued with conventional weapons even though they have accounted for over 98 per cent of the civilian deaths. It will need the courage, imagination and persistence of all of humanity’s ‘better angels’ to come to the effective and permanent rescue of the suffering civilians in Syria.