Yes, dueling was a common practice within the ranks of Euro-American elite men from the 16th c. up through the 19th and 20th centuries, depending. I've written extensively on the topic in the past, including here for the origins, while this is more general and touches on quite a few aspects in the follow-ups, and this while brief looks specifically at legal angles.

Beyond that you can find a longer collection covering most angles of the duel here.

You might want to narrow that down. History is a long, long time, and dudes have been getting angry and killing each other for stupid bullshit reasons for... pretty much all of it.

But let's pick a time and place at random. Let's say early 19th-century America, for no better reason than because I happened to do a bit of reading on the subject a while back and it's stuck with me. There's a fellow you might have heard of, name of Alexander Hamilton, founding father and former Secretary of the Treasury under George Washington. There was a play about him that I need to get around to seeing at some point.

For a number of reasons, neither of which can be solely attributed to either man, and many of them part of a larger political struggle, Hamilton was involved in a long-standing conflict with Vice President Aaron Burr. The most direct events leading to the two choosing to duel involved comments Hamilton had made regarding Burr's fitness for the office of Governor of New York that he was running for: these comments in a letter from a third party being published in the Albany Register newspaper were a contributing factor to Burr losing the election. In a series of letters from June 18-22, 1804, Burr made several demands of Hamilton regarding clarification of his comments, which Burr saw as slander: "You must perceive, Sir, the necessity of a prompt and unqualified acknowledgement or denial of the use of any expressions which could warrant the assertions of Dr. Cooper". Hamilton did not agree to Burr's demands, calling them "unprecedented and unwarrantable". Burr eventually challenged Hamilton to a duel.

Minor issue: dueling was illegal in many states in the fledgling United States, including New York, where Hamilton and Burr both lived, as well as nearby New Jersey (a misdemeanor in New York, I'm less certain about New Jersey but I believe a misdemeanor there as well). But the law in New Jersey was less strict, and so the two men held the duel near Weehawken, New Jersey, on July 11. This was a fairly popular location for duels, Demontreux states that 18 such duels were held there between 1700 and 1845, including both the Hamilton-Burr duel and the earlier 1801 duel between Hamilton's son Phillip and George Eacker, in which Phillip Hamilton died.

And so two men were posed to fight to the death. As this was a highly illegal event, only a few people were present. Hamilton and Burr, obviously, along with their respective seconds, Nathaniel Pendleton and William Peter Van Ness, who had carried the letters between the two men in an effort to find a nonviolent solution, considered to be the primary purpose of the second under the dueling code, this sadly did not work out. Also present were doctors brought by both sides, another common practice.

As for the exact events of the duel, nobody can say. The common practice was for the seconds and anybody else present to very conspicuously not watch the duel, so as to be able to honestly swear in a court of law that they never saw anybody shooting anybody else.

What the witnesses could attest to was that both men fired their pistols once. Whether due to bad aim or intentionally missing (a practice called throwing away one's shot, considered an honorable way to end a duel without killing), Hamilton failed to hit Burr, instead hitting a tree branch above him. Burr, however, landed a lethal shot to Hamilton's abdomen. Burr later claimed that he aimed to kill because he believed Hamilton intended to do the same, and both Burr and Van Ness swore that Hamilton had put on his glasses and had raised his pistol several times before the duel, "as if to try the light". A statement Hamilton had written sometime between his last letter to Burr and the day of the duel stated that his intent was to throw away his shot, being the only way he could see to align his obligations as an honorable gentleman and a good Christian.

Whatever the case may be, the duel was conducted, a bullet hit a man, and he died the following day. Burr had just killed a man in an illegal duel, and was charged in both New Jersey and New York, and indicted grand jury in New Jersey, but the indictment was quashed by the New Jersey Supreme Court in November of 1807, claiming:

The Indictment having been found at the Court of Oyer and Terminer for the County of Bergen and certified hither by Certiorari and upon Inspection of the said Indictment, it appears that the mortal wound and Death of the said Alexander Hamilton as charged in the said Indictment at the Township of Bergen in the County of Bergen and State of New Jersey and whereas it is suggested and fully appears that the said Alexander did actually die in the City of New York and State of New-York out of the Jurisdiction of this State and a Trial upon the said Indictment would be totally ineffectual, as the said Aaron Burr could not be convicted on the same under the Statute in such Case made and provided—It is ordered by the Court, by the Assent and on motion of the Attorney General, that the said Indictment be quashed.

Meanwhile, Burr had fled to Georgia for a short time, before returning to Washington DC to finish out his term as Vice President. Despite the charges, he was never actually tried, for either the duel or Hamilton's death. To finally get around to answering your question about whether duelists were held accountable for their actions, I can at least solidly answer: In at least one case, not really.