In 1979, the SADF established a highly clandestine unit, called Delta40 or D40 in short. This ultra­secret unit was tasked with the dirty work of “disappearing” hundreds of ANC, PAC and Swapo actvisits. With the help of Project Coast, D40 poisoned political activists and prisoners of war before dumping their bodies into the ocean from a light aircraft.

Even some of the SADF’s own special force members became victims of these ‘death flights’ when they threatened to expose the secret work of D40. D40 was renamed Barnacle and eventually became the well­known Civil Co­operation Bureau (CCB), but the existence and operations of D40 remained almost unknown until now. Its role in state­sanctioned murders was a well­kept secret.

Seasoned investigative journalist Michael Schmidt interviewed veteran D40, Barnacle and CCB operatives, as well as Recce commanders and double­agents, to piece together this top­secret history. With Death Flight he uncovers black ops kept hidden for decades

A gripping and explosive account of Vladimir Putin's tyranny, charting his rise from spy to tsar, exposing the events that led to his invasion of Ukraine and his assault on Europe.

In Killer in the Kremlin, award-winning journalist John Sweeney takes readers from the heart of Putin's Russia to the killing fields of Chechnya, to the embattled cities of an invaded Ukraine.

In a disturbing exposé of Putin's sinister ambition, Sweeney draws on thirty years of his own reporting - from the Moscow apartment bombings to the atrocities committed by the Russian Army in Chechnya, to the annexation of Crimea and a confrontation with Putin over the shooting down of flight MH17 - to understand the true extent of Putin's long war.

Drawing on eyewitness accounts and compelling testimony from those who have suffered at Putin's hand, we see the heroism of the Russian opposition, the bravery of the Ukrainian resistance, and the brutality with which the Kremlin responds to such acts of defiance, assassinating or locking away its critics, and stopping at nothing to achieve its imperialist aims.

In the midst of one of the darkest acts of aggression in modern history - Russia's invasion of Ukraine - this book shines a light on Putin's rule and poses urgent questions about how the world must respond.

Providing an intellectual biography of the challenging concept of genocide from inception to present day, this topical Handbook takes an interdisciplinary approach to shed new light on the events, processes, and legacies in the field. Reaching beyond the traditional study of canonical genocides and related pathologies of behaviour, this Handbook strives to spell out the multiple dimensions of genocide studies as an academic realm. In doing so, it incorporates a vast range of methods and disciplines, including historiography, archival research, listening to testimony, philosophical inquiry, film studies, and art criticism. Contributors address a broad array of episodes, including genocides of indigenous populations in the Americas and Africa, the Armenian genocide, the Holocaust, twentieth century genocides in Indonesia, Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, and twenty-first century genocides in Iraq, Myanmar, and China. By developing a cross-disciplinary framework, this Handbook showcases the diversity that comprises the field and creates a rich understanding of the origin, effects, and legacy of genocide. With a wide variety of perspectives, this Handbook will prove an invigorating read for students and scholars of international and human rights, public policy, and political geography and geopolitics, particularly those interested in genocide studies and the UN Genocide Convention.

The permanent five (P5) members of the United Nations Security Council ? China, France, Russia, the UK, and the USA - have a firm duty to prevent genocide in light of the due diligence standard under conventional, customary, and peremptory international law. This perceptive book explores the positive obligations of these states to act both within and without the Security Council context to prevent or suppress imminent or on-going genocide. John Heieck successfully argues why the duty to prevent genocide is not only a customary, but also an absolute norm of international law, and analyses the scope of the due diligence standard regarding the duty to prevent genocide. In doing so, he considers the ramifications of this on the actions of the P5 members of the Security Council, both within and outside of this eminent body. Significantly, Heieck proposes a legal test for identifying jus cogens norms, and explores the effect of these on the actions and omissions of specifically identified members of the United Nations (UN). Topical and insightful, A Duty to Prevent Genocide will be an important read for both academics and students of international law and politics who wish to further understand the legal nature of the duty of the P5 members to prevent genocide. It will also provide valuable insights for policymakers of the P5 member states.

Time correspondent Simon Shuster delivers the unmissable account of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, written and reported from inside the presidential compound in Kyiv, based on Shuster's unparalleled access to President Zelensky and his top aides.

When Lidia Maksymowicz was just a young girl, her partisan family went into hiding in the forest of Belorussia. It was there that they were arrested and taken to Auschwitz. Lidia was branded 70072, sent to the infamous ‘children’s block’ and subjected to the experiments of Dr Josef Mengele.

Having survived Auschwitz, Lidia was adopted and grew up in the industrial town of Oswiecim. She never gave up trying to find her family. In 1962, seventeen years after the liberation, she discovered that her parents were still alive and that her mother had never stopped searching for her. In Moscow, early-1960s, they were finally reunited.

Lidia has since made it her mission to share her story. In 2021, she made headlines around the world when Pope Francis kissed the tattoo that, once a symbol of separation, led her back to her mother.

The Little Girl Who Could Not Cry is a moving memoir of survival but, above all, the prevailing power of love and hope.

As the world becomes ever more unequal, people become ever more 'disposable'. Today, governments systematically exclude sections of their populations from society through heavy-handed policing. But it doesn't always go to plan. William I. Robinson exposes the nature and dynamics of this out-of-control system, arguing for the urgency of creating a movement capable of overthrowing it. The global police state uses a variety of ingenious methods of control, including mass incarceration, police violence, US-led wars, the persecution of immigrants and refugees, and the repression of environmental activists. Movements have emerged to combat the increasing militarization, surveillance and social cleansing; however many of them appeal to a moral sense of social justice rather than addressing its root - global capitalism. Using shocking data which reveals how far capitalism has become a system of repression, Robinson argues that the emerging megacities of the world are becoming the battlegrounds where the excluded and the oppressed face off against the global police state.

After World War II, thousands of Japanese throughout Asia were put on trial for war crimes. Examination of postwar trials is now a thriving area of research, but Sharon W. Chamberlain is the first to offer an authoritative assessment of the legal proceedings convened in the Philippines. These were trials conducted by Asians, not Western powers, and centered on the abuses suffered by local inhabitants rather than by prisoners of war. Her impressively researched work reveals the challenges faced by the Philippines, as a newly independent nation, in navigating issues of justice amid domestic and international pressures. Chamberlain highlights the differing views of Filipinos and Japanese about the trials. The Philippine government aimed to show its commitment to impartial proceedings with just outcomes. In Japan, it appeared that defendants were selected arbitrarily, judges and prosecutors were biased, and lower-ranking soldiers were punished for crimes ordered by their superior officers. She analyzes the broader implications of this divergence as bilateral relations between the two nations evolved and contends that these competing narratives were reimagined in a way that, paradoxically, aided a path toward postwar reconciliation.

This innovative collection offers one of the first analyses of criminologies of the military from an interdisciplinary perspective. While some criminologists have examined the military in relation to the area of war crimes, this collection considers a range of other important but less explored aspects such as private military actors, insurgents, paramilitary groups and the role of military forces in tackling transnational crime. Drawing upon insights from criminology, this book's editors also consider the ways the military institution harbours criminal activity within its ranks and deals with prisoners of war. The contributions, by leading experts in the field, have a broad reach and take a truly global approach to the subject.

Reverberations of Nazi Violence in Germany and Beyond explores the complex and diverse reverberations of the Second World War after 1945. It focuses on the legacies that National Socialist violence and genocide perpetrated in Europe continue to have in German-speaking countries and communities, as well as among those directly affected by occupation, terror and mass murder. Furthermore it explores how those legacies are in turn shaped by the present. The volume also considers conflicting, unexpected and often dissonant interpretations and representations of these events, made by those who were the witnesses, victims and perpetrators at the time and also by different communities in the generations that followed. The contributions, from a range of disciplinary perspectives, enrich our understanding of the complexity of the ways in which a disturbing past continues to disrupt the present and how the past is in turn disturbed and instrumentalized by a later present.

An indispensable reference on concentration camps, death camps, prisoner-of-war camps, and military prisons offering broad historical coverage as well as detailed analysis of the nature of captivity in modern conflict. This comprehensive reference work examines internment, forced labor, and extermination during times of war and genocide, with a focus on the 20th and 21st centuries and particular attention paid to World War II and recent conflicts in the Middle East. It explores internment as it has been used as a weapon and led to crimes against humanity and is ideal for students of global studies, history, and political science as well as politically and socially aware general readers. In addition to entries on such notorious camps as Abu Ghraib, Andersonville, Auschwitz, and the Hanoi Hilton, the encyclopedia includes profiles of key perpetrators of camp and prison atrocities and more than a dozen curated and contextualized primary source documents that further illuminate the subject. Primary sources include United Nations documents outlining the treatment of prisoners of war, government reports of infamous camp and prison atrocities, and oral histories from survivors of these notorious facilities. Maintains a modern focus while providing broad historical context Covers lesser-known but significant events such as the camps set up by the British for refugees of the Boer Wars that resulted in the deaths of 25,000 people Provides the context necessary to help students understand the significance of the primary source material in introductions Studies camps outside of World War II, illustrating their use in numerous other wars and genocides

The Syrian war has been an example of the abuse and insufficient delivery of humanitarian assistance. According to international practice, humanitarian aid should be channelled through a state government that bears a particular responsibility for its population. Yet in Syria, the bulk of relief went through Damascus while the regime caused the vast majority of civilian deaths. Should the UN have severed its cooperation with the government and neglected its humanitarian duty to help all people in need? Decision-makers face these tough policy dilemmas, and often the "neutrality trap" snaps shut. This book discusses the political and moral considerations of how to respond to a brutal and complex crisis while adhering to international law and practice. The author, a scholar and senior diplomat involved in the UN peace talks in Geneva, draws from first-hand diplomatic, practitioner and UN sources. He sheds light on the UN's credibility crisis and the wider implications for the development of international humanitarian and human rights law. This includes covering the key questions asked by Western diplomats, NGOs and international organizations, such as: Why did the UN not confront the Syrian government more boldly? Was it not only legally correct but also morally justifiable to deliver humanitarian aid to regime areas where rockets were launched and warplanes started? Why was it so difficult to render cross-border aid possible where it was badly needed? The meticulous account of current international practice is both insightful and disturbing. It tackles the painful lessons learnt and provides recommendations for future challenges where politics fails and humanitarians fill the moral void.

This ground-breaking comparative perspective on the subject of World War II war crimes and war justice focuses on American and German atrocities. Almost every war involves loss of life of both military personnel and civilians, but World War II involved an unprecedented example of state-directed and ideologically motivated genocide-the Holocaust. Beyond this horrific, premeditated war crime perpetrated on a massive scale, there were also isolated and spontaneous war crimes committed by both German and U.S. forces. The book is focused upon on two World War II atrocities-one committed by Germans and the other by Americans. The author carefully examines how the U.S. Army treated each crime, and gives accounts of the atrocities from both German and American perspectives. The two events are contextualized within multiple frameworks: the international law of war, the phenomenon of war criminality in World War II, and the German and American collective memories of World War II. Americans, Germans and War Crimes Justice: Law, Memory, and "The Good War" provides a fresh and comprehensive perspective on the complex and sensitive subject of World War II war crimes and justice. . Provides historic photographs related to war crimes and trials . An extensive bibliography of primary sources and secondary literature in English and German related to World War II war crimes and trials

Eminent jurists, professional legal organizations, and human rights monitors in this country and around the world have declared that President George W. Bush may be prosecuted as a war criminal when he leaves office for his overt and systematic violations of such international law as the Geneva and Hague Conventions and such US law as the War Crimes Act, the Anti-Torture Act, and federal assault laws. "George W. Bush, War Criminal?" identifies and documents 269 specific war crimes under US and international law for which President Bush, senior officials and staff in his administration, and military officers under his command are liable to be prosecuted. Haas divides the 269 war crimes of the Bush administration into four classes: 6 war crimes committed in launching a war of aggression; 36 war crimes committed in the conduct of war; 175 war crimes committed in the treatment of prisoners; and 52 war crimes committed in postwar occupations.

For each of the 269 war crimes of the Bush administration, Professor Haas gives chapter and verse in precise but non-technical language, including the specific acts deemed to be war crimes, the names of the officials deemed to be war criminals, and the exact language of the international or domestic laws violated by those officials. The author proceeds to consider the various US, international, and foreign tribunals in which the war crimes of Bush administration defendants may be tried under applicable bodies of law. He evaluates the real-world practicability of bringing cases against Bush and Bush officials in each of the possible venues. Finally, he weighs the legal, political, and humanitarian pros and cons of actually bringing Bush and Bush officials to trial for war crimes.

When Slobodan Milosevic died in the United Nations Detention Unit in The Hague over four years after his trial had begun, many feared - and some hoped - that international criminal justice was experiencing some sort of death itself. Yet the Milosevic case, the first trial of a former head of state by a truly international criminal tribunal and one of the most complex and lengthy war crimes trials in history, stands for much in the development and the future of international criminal justice, both politically and legally. This book, written by the senior legal advisor working for the Trial Chamber, analyses the trial to determine what lessons can be learnt that will improve the fair and expeditious conduct of complex international criminal proceedings brought against former heads of state and senior political and military officials, and develops reforms for the future achievement of best practice in international criminal law.

A thorough introduction to the laws of war, the savagery of war crimes, and the international system that demands justice. How do you speak of the unspeakable and defend the indefensible? War Crimes and Justice: A Reference Handbook thoroughly examines the laws of war and how the world community handles the monstrous brutalities of war through the international justice system. Highlighted are 20th century war crimes and trials including Yugoslavia, Kosovo, and the Kerry incident in Vietnam. Also covered are the four international tribunals established to punish violators in Nuremberg, Tokyo, Yugoslavia, and Rwanda. Pulitzer Prize-nominated author Howard Ball discusses those who committed unspeakable acts during war, others who sought justice for victims, and case studies portraying both victims and perpetrators. Significant treaties and conventions are explored, as well as all the options available to nations emerging from the throes of bloody civil wars to ensure peace with justice. Includes coverage of key people and trials including World War II, Vietnam, and the recent war in Kosovo Provides speeches, reports, and edited trial transcripts from cases involving war crimes

The 1998 Rome Statute, the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court (ICC), includes a longer list of gender-based crimes than any previous instrument of international criminal law. The Statute's twentieth anniversary provides an opportunity to examine how successful the ICC has been in prosecuting those crimes, what challenges it has faced, and how its caselaw on these crimes might develop in future. Taking up that opportunity, this book analyses the ICC's practice in prosecuting gender-based crimes across all cases for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in the ICC up until mid-2018. This analysis is based on a detailed examination of court records and original interviews with prosecutors and gender experts at the Court. This book covers topics of emerging interest to practitioners in this field, including wartime sexual violence against men and boys, persecution on the grounds of gender and sexual orientation, and sexual violence against 'child soldiers'.

Overshadowed for many years by the Nuremberg trials, the Tokyo Trial--one of the major events in the aftermath of World War II--has elicited renewed interest since the 50th anniversary of the war's end. Revelations of previously hidden war crimes, including comfort women and biological warfare, and the establishment of international courts to try Yugoslav and Rwandan war criminals have added to the interest. This bibliography addressees the renewed interest in the Tokyo Trial, providing over 700 citations to official publications, scholarly monographs and journal articles, contemporaneous accounts, manuscript collections, and Web sites. Also included are sources on the Trial's influence on international law and military law and unresolved issues being debated to this day.

Defining war crimes after the fact, practicing victor's justice to punish enemies, holding military commanders accountable for their troops' actions--these were issues confronted in the Tokyo Trial and other Asia-Pacific war crimes trials. They are still being investigated, researched, and debated today. This bibliography helps to illuminate these issues from different perspectives, providing a variety of ways to locate relevant English-language sources. The volume also includes citations to contemporary issues stemming from the Asia-Pacific war crimes trials--comfort women, biological warfare, and unresolved issues of reparations and official apologies. The book is a useful guide to sources on all aspects of the Tokyo Trial.

Since unification, the Federal Republic of Germany has made vaunted efforts to make amends for the crimes of the Third Reich. Yet it remains the case that the demands for restitution by many countries that were occupied during the Second World War are unresolved, and recent demands from Greece and Poland have only reignited old debates. This book reconstructs the German occupation of Poland and Greece and gives a thorough accounting of these debates. Working from the perspective of international law, it deepens the scholarly discourse around the issue, clarifying the 'never-ending story' of German reparations policy and making a principled call for further action. A compilation of primary sources comprising 125 annotated key texts (512 pages) on the complexity of reparations discussions covering the period between 1941 and the end of 2017 is available for free on the Berghahn Books website, doi: 10.3167/9781800732575.dd.

The international community's efforts to halt child soldiering have yielded some successes. But this pernicious practice persists. It may shift locally, but it endures globally. Preventative measures therefore remain inadequate. Former child soldiers experience challenges readjusting to civilian life. Reintegration is complex and eventful. The homecoming is only the beginning. Reconciliation within communities afflicted by violence committed by and against child soldiers is incomplete. Shortfalls linger on the restorative front. The international community strives to eradicate the scourge of child soldiering. Mostly, though, these efforts replay the same narratives and circulate the same assumptions. Current humanitarian discourse sees child soldiers as passive victims, tools of war, vulnerable, psychologically devastated, and not responsible for their violent acts. This perception has come to suffuse international law and policy. Although reflecting much of the lives of child soldiers, this portrayal also omits critical aspects. This book pursues an alternate path by reimagining the child soldier. It approaches child soldiers with a more nuanced and less judgmental mind. This book takes a second look at these efforts. It aspires to refresh law and policy so as to improve preventative, restorative, and remedial initiatives while also vivifying the dignity of youth. Along the way, Drumbl questions central tenets of contemporary humanitarianism and rethinks elements of international criminal justice. This ground-breaking book is essential reading for anyone committed to truly emboldening the rights of the child. It offers a way to think about child soldiers that would invigorate international law, policy, and best practices. Where does this reimagination lead? Not toward retributive criminal trials, but instead toward restorative forms of justice. Toward forgiveness instead of excuse, thereby facilitating reintegration and promoting social repair within afflicted communities. Toward a better understanding of child soldiering, without which the practice cannot be ended. This book also offers fresh thinking on related issues, ranging from juvenile justice, to humanitarian interventions, to the universality of human rights, to the role of law in responding to mass atrocity.

War crimes have devastating effects on victims and perpetrators and endanger broader political and military goals. The protection of civilians, one of the most fundamental norms in the laws of war, appears to have weakened despite almost universal international agreement. Using insights from organizational theory, this book seeks to understand the process between military socialization and unit participation in war crimes. How do militaries train their soldiers in the laws of war? How do they enforce compliance with these laws? Drawing on evidence from the Korean War, the Malayan Emergency, and the Canadian peacekeeping mission in Somalia, the author discovers that military efforts to train soldiers about the laws of war are poor and leadership often sent mixed signals about the importance of compliance. However, units that developed subcultures that embraced these laws and had strong leadership were more likely to comply than those with weak discipline or countercultural norms.

This book examines the use of national and international law to prosecute Nazi crimes, the centerpiece of twentieth-century state-sponsored genocide and mass murder crimes, the paradigmatic instance of state-sponsored criminality and genocide in the twentieth century. Its various essays, the contributors reconstruct the historical historical setting of the crimes committed under the aegis of the Nazi regime and examine why postwar adjudication took place only within limits, within the national and international judicial forums responsible for prosecuting perpetrators. The topics discussed include the impact of the Nazi justice system on postwar justice, postwar legal proceedings against those who committed war crimes and genocide, the work of the Nuremberg tribunal and Allied trials, and judicial investigations and prosecutions in East Germany, West Germany, and Austria. They span the postwar period up to contemporary U.S. legal efforts to deport Nazi criminals within its borders and libel trials against Holocaust denials in London and Canadian courts and libel suits brought by Holocaust deniers in British and Canadian courts, and they reveal new perspectives on the present and future implications of these trials.

This book examines expectations for justice in transitional societies and how stakeholder expectations are ignored, marginalized and co-opted by institutions in the wake of conflict. Focusing on institutions that have adopted international criminal trials, the authors encourage us to ask not only whether expectations are appropriate to institutions, but whether institutions are appropriate expectations. Drawing upon a wide variety of sources, this volume demonstrates that a profound 'expectation gap' - the gap between anticipated and likely outcomes of justice - exists in transitional justice systems and processes. This 'expectation gap' requires that the justice goals of local communities be managed accordingly. In proposing a perspective of enhanced engagement, the authors argue for greater compromise in the expectations, goals and design of transitional justice. This book will constitute an important and valuable resource for students of scholars of transitional justice as well as practitioners, particularly with regards to the design of transitional justice responses.

This book uses in-depth interview data with victims of conflict in Northern Ireland, South Africa and Sri Lanka to offer a new, sociological conceptualization of everyday life peacebuilding. It argues that sociological ideas about the nature of everyday life complement and supplement the concept of everyday life peacebuilding recently theorized within International Relations Studies (IRS). It claims that IRS misunderstands the nature of everyday life by seeing it only as a particular space where mundane, routine and ordinary peacebuilding activities are accomplished. Sociology sees everyday life also as a mode of reasoning. By exploring victims' ways of thinking and understanding, this book argues that we can better locate their accomplishment of peacebuilding as an ordinary activity. The book is based on six years of empirical research in three different conflict zones and reports on a wealth of interview data to support its theoretical arguments. This data serves to give voice to victims who are otherwise neglected and marginalized in peace processes.