The article investigates the judiciary of international criminal law and its development over time. Inspired by the sociological tools of Pierre Bourdieu and building on an original dataset, the article analyses the judiciary of three international criminal courts, namely the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Court and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia. The focus of the analysis is on how the composition of expertise in the judiciary of these courts reflects the wider power structure in the field of international criminal law as well as temporal developments in this structure. Reflecting and responding to these transformations, the judiciary of international criminal law has been affected by a double decline of positions and prestige and a turn towards practice as the core expertise of the field. However, despite this turn to practice, the accumulation of political expertise continues to structure access to elite positions in the international criminal law judiciary.