Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was elected to parliament yesterday in a landmark moment for the nation ruled by a military junta until just a few years ago. Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Suu Kyi has been a long-time pro-democracy activist in Myanmar, spending several years under house arrest for her efforts against the military dictators. Suu Kyi lauded her electoral victory as "a triumph of the people" of Myanmar.

Although Suu Kyi's party will only comprise a small minority in the 664-seat legislature, the election is an important step in the movement towards democracy for the formally autocratic government. While the government is still heavily controlled by the military, the nation's leaders have shown significant signs of improving, including ending Suu Kyi's house arrest, freeing hundreds of other political prisoners, allowing opposition parties to participate in elections and calling for the end of ethnically motivated human rights violations.

March 14, 2012 marks an extraordinary moment in world history. This morning, the International Criminal Court (ICC) completed its very first trial, convicting Thomas Lubanga Dyilo of forcing children to serve as soldiers in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. More than 74 million viewers have watched Invisible Children's Kony 2012 video, calling for the arrest and ICC trial of Joseph Kony. But few are aware that Lubanga, a man as despicable as Kony, has laid the groundwork for the kind of trial that Joseph Kony surely deserves.

The Arab Spring has captured international attention for more than a year now, conjuring images of protests in Tunis, Cairo or Homs. Particularly the ongoing plight of the Syrian people has stirred emotions, leading human rights advocates to call for international action to intervene and protect civilians being attacked for protesting. But many people seem to have forgotten another group of people who also took to the streets and public squares to demand greater democracy and freedom - the people of Bahrain.

Last night I attended a great event titled In Search of Accountability: Justice after Nuremberg. The panel discussion, organized by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, focused on international justice and the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). Michael Abramowitz, director of the Committee on Conscience at the museum, guided the discussion so that the three panelists would focus on the questions most significant to global justice: Are the mechanisms established in the first war crimes tribunals enough to deliver justice to perpetrators today? Since the Nuremberg trials, what new strategies have emerged?