During the 1990s, Judge Gabrielle Kirk McDonald presided over some of the most shocking cases in the world. A former federal judge in Texas, law professor, and U.S. civil rights attorney, McDonald served as the sole American on the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY). Elected in 1993 to the tribunal--the first international war crimes body since the end of World War II--McDonald helped to draft its rules. Between 1997 and 1999, she was ICTY president, with additional duties overseeing cases involving genocide in Rwanda, Africa.

Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1942, McDonald learned in her childhood to fight intolerance and racism. Raised in New York after her parents divorced, she was inspired by her mother's refusal to be bullied by discriminatory landlords and businesses. Graduating at the top of her class at the Howard University School of Law in 1966, McDonald immediately went to work on civil rights...